Can Urine Be Distilled to Extract Potable Water?

[jc.int]

Hello,
I'd like to know if it is possible to distillate urine so we can extract potable water from it.
I know that some of its components, like ammonia, can be found of the resulting liquid but couln't we just heat urine at a certain temperature so it is just the water that is distillated?

Thank you

Jaime

 

[Ryan_m_b]

NASA uses such technologies to purify the urine of astronauts
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4858780&page=1#.TrxPKUOF9tM

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

You can, but don't ever try it. It's the most disgusting thing in the world.

 

[Evo]

You can, but don't ever try it. It's the most disgusting thing in the world.

You're an astronaut on the space station?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

When I was a kid I watched a documentary on the urine purifier that NASA uses, as part of the test they used a machine to measure the purity of water and compared the purified urine to tap water. The former was purer than the later by several orders of magnitude.

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

You're an astronaut on the space station?

Haha, I mean, at the space station they surely have a good way of doing it, but don't try to do it at your lab or something.

 

[Andy Resnick]

NASA uses such technologies to purify the urine of astronauts
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4858780&page=1#.TrxPKUOF9tM

Not just the urine, but also the 'solid waste'.

 

[Moonbear]

I doubt it's a single distillation step. With any distillation process, the idea is to gradually raise the temperature to evaporate off the volatile components in stages and collect the fractions of distillate. I haven't ever felt the need to look into the boiling temperatures of the components of urine, but there are probably a few that would be in earlier fractions than the water. Though, it probably falls very strongly in the "don't try this at home" category, unless you really hate your neighbors. I'm sure the process doesn't smell very nice.