Are you looking for ways how to purify water for drinking? What can you do to make sure your water is safe and ready to drink in an emergency situation?
Are you trying to create a list of the best ways to purify water? Well, thank goodness for the internet... we've already done it for you!
Check out our list of 25 great ways how to purify water for drinking, each of them listed below in quick & easy bite-sized blurbs for your reading pleasure!
We all need purified water regularly in our daily lives: It's water routinely filtered and cleaned for bodily intake. It's our chlorinated water purification methods for those of us in a dire situation. It's even as simple as a pot of boiling water on your stove! When it comes to the water you drink, water purification becomes EVERYONE's business, whether we like it or not.
Learn more about all the different ways how to purify water below and enjoy refreshing, purified water today!
1. Using a Water Purifier Product
Water Purifier *BESTSELLERS*:
The simplest way to purify water easily is with a reliable water purifier product. Today, companies offer tons of products for your home, even whole house water purification systems. This equipment assures bottled water quality at your faucet, ON DEMAND.
So, what is the best water purifier available online? Check out a few of these bestsellers below:
2. Boiling Water
Boiling is the simplest tactic among water purification methods to cleanse water that is unsafe because of micro-organism contamination such as viruses, parasites, or bacteria. The notion in this style of sanitation is that the micro-organism is eliminated by pushing the bacterium or virus past its heat range.
HOW TO BOIL YOUR WATER PURE
- Get access to some household cooking facilities with fire
- Or when such facilities are not available, some type of outdoor/camping cooking equipment can also work
- After preparing the materials, bring the water to a rolling boil for 3-5 minutes, and to be extra safe, let the water boil rapidly for one minute, especially at higher altitudes since water boils at a lower temperature
- Let the water cool before drinking
One of the prevalent advantages here is that you are not adding any chemical to your water; however, boiling will not remove metals or harmful chemicals. So, be wary if the contaminants are metals, nitrates, pesticides, solvents and the like.
3. Reverse Osmosis
RO water purifier products use a process wherein inorganic solids such as salts are removed from a solution by applying a pressure in excess of the osmotic pressure. This is universally known for its use in drinking water purification from seawater.
If you are in the market for a great way to purify your own water at home, please check out our list of the best reverse osmosis water filters available online.
4. Water Chlorination
This is an emergency water purification where water can be made safe for drinking by remedying with liquid household chlorine bleach. Household bleach is normally between 5% and 6% chlorine, and this is a heavy-duty oxidant that swiftly kills many harmful micro-organisms.
By using this method, keep in mind that regular household bleaches have an expiration date and you should only use those that do not contain perfumes, dyes, and other additives.
HOW TO PURIFY THROUGH CHLORINATION
- 1Place the water in a clean container and add the amount of bleach corresponding to the table below:
AMOUNT OF BLEACH | AMOUNT OF WATER TO BE PURIFIED |
---|---|
16 drops bleach | Per gallon or four-liter container of water |
8 drops bleach | Per two-quart, two-liter or half gallon container of water |
4 drops bleach | Per quart or liter container of water |
- 2Mix carefully and permit to stand for at least 30 minutes or at least an hour if the water is chalky before using.
- 3Enjoy a rather strange-tasting, yet purified, delight. Needless to say, drawbacks to water chlorination include aesthetic apprehensions such as taste and odor.
5. Ozonation
Ozonation is used mainly used by European countries to produce purified water. This method uses ozone, a pale blue gas with a peculiarly bitter smell, as a disinfectant. This is created on-site and added to the water by bubble contact in order to break down a wide variety of nonliving, biological and microbiological problems and taste and odor problems.
Nevertheless, this system has a higher equipment and operational cost, and probable fire hazards and toxicity concerns are related with ozone generation.
6. Desalination
Desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals. More notably, salt water is desalinated to produce fresh water suitable for human consumption or irrigation. Portable desalinator products are especially useful in dire emergency situations out at sea. Pick one up for quick & easy purified drinking water if you're headed for an ocean adventure.
7. Iodine Treatment
Generally, this treatment is one of many portable water purification systems that can be used by anyone who must acquire drinking water from untreated sources. The iodine kills various, but not all, of the most common pathogens existent in natural fresh water sources.
The procedure is as follows:
Iodine as water purification tablets is also available for those in need of field purification. This kind of tablet can serve as the best lightweight camping water purifier.
8. Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation
Ultraviolet water purification is a decontamination technique that uses ultraviolet light at appropriately short wavelength to eradicate or inactivate microorganisms. UV water purification is fast and compares positively with other water purifier in terms of cost and labor.
UV light water purification stops microbes from replicating making them far less hazardous. Water treated by ultraviolet water purifier is about the healthiest water that you can probably drink. Still, water that was preserved under a UV light water purifier must not be exposed to visible light for any weighty period of time before drinking to avoid consumption of reactivated microbes.
9. Solar Disinfection
This is a type of portable water purification that uses solar energy to make biologically-contaminated water safe to drink. There are three main subsets of solar water disinfection –electric water purifier, heat purification and UV purification. The gist in this is that microbes are annihilated by the temperature provided by the sun which makes Solar Disinfection suitable as a travel water purifier.
10. Solar Distillation
This is a practical manner of distilling water using the heat of the sun. Great for any water purifier camping situation, solar distillation can be done when a makeshift still can be constructed simply from readily available components to be a portable water purifier. It is then placed it over a small pit that is burrowed into the ground so that it can be used to make safe drinking water from unnatural water sources.
11. Filtration through Winnowing Sieve
When the water source is contaminated by wind-borne filth such as dry leaves, this type of filtration is best utilized. However, this method cannot be used when the raw water is highly turbid or muddy, since the sieve cannot filter fine suspended particles in raw water.
IN A NUTSHELL: Raw water is passed through a winnowing sieve – a tool of wire mesh or closely holed metal or plastic – and the impurities are filtered
12. Filtration through Cloth
This is most suitable for filtration of well water as it can only filter raw water containing impurities such as plant debris, insects or coarse mud particles. The gist in this type of Do-It-Yourself filtration is that a thin white cotton cloth or a discarded garment is used as the filter medium.
13. Filtration through Clay Vessels
Clay vessels with a suitable pore size are used widely in Egypt to filter highly muddy water.
THIS IS HOW IT WORKS:
- Turbid water is collected and placed at the bottom of the big porous clay jar and is allowed to settle down
- Then the water in the jar will trickle through the porous clay wall of the jar
14. Clarification and Filtration through Plant Material
This type of water filtration uses nuts or roots and cloth filters to purify highly turbid water. Generally, the result of this method is a jar of filtered water that is very clear and has a pleasant smell. Looks can deceive, folks...
15. Jempeng Stone Filter Method

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This type of filtration can be best used as a village water treatment since there is no operational or maintenance cost such as for cleaning.
HERE'S WHAT TO DO:
- Put the jempeng stone filter units which are carved out of a porous material called ‘cadas’ in the artificial ponds
- And let the muddy water filters through the porous wall of the filter unit as it gets collected inside
16. Dungeness Crab Shells and Nopal Cactus Gel Purification
These natural products can filter out the metals, iron and copper dissolved in water. This method is the most environmentally friendly way to cleanse water by recycling.
17. Membrane Filtration
This is a physical filtration process where a contaminated fluid is passed through a thin layer of semi-permeable membrane to separate microorganisms and suspended particles from process liquid.
18. Flocculation
When impurities cannot be removed by other water purification methods, Flocculation can come to the rescue. This process constitutes a vital part in the treatment of surface water or of waters with high-level of contamination.
19. Aeration
Today, aeration is applied generally to ground waters, for the removal of iron, and then of manganese, and also to eliminate malodorous gases from sulfur bearing ground waters.
In aeration, water is sprayed into the air to raise the oxygen content, to break down stinks, and to balance the dissolved gases.
20. Pressure Sand
This type of water purification method is often used to remove suspended solids from water. The filtration medium comprises of several layers of sand with a variety in size and specific gravity and this must be back-washed regularly.
21. Sedimentation
Sedimentation is a physical water treatment process using gravity to remove suspended solids from water. This is the primary treatment of sewage in removal of floating solids.
22. Slow Sand Filters
Using slow sand filters does a limited bacteria removal but can produce very high quality water free from pathogens, taste and odor without the need for chemical aids.
23. Direct Contact Membrane Distillation
HERE'S THE LOWDOWN:
- Heated seawater is circulated along the surface of a hydrophobic polymer membrane
- Evaporated water passes from the broiling surface through pores in the membrane into a stream of cold pure water on the other side.
24. Gas Hydrate Crystals Centrifuge Method
Gas hydrate crystals are formed when carbon dioxide or other low molecular weight gas is mixed with contaminated water at high pressure and low temperature, and in order to purify the water, this centrifuge method should be performed.
25. In Situ Chemical Oxidation
This is a form of innovative oxidation technology used for soil and groundwater purification to lessen the concentrations of targeted environmental contaminants to tolerable levels.
"ISCO" IS PRETTY MUCH THIS: The process of injecting strong chemical oxidizers directly into the contaminated channel to terminate chemical contaminants in place.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, purifying our water is more important now than it has ever been in human history. Our species will only continue to ravage the world with every year that passes and clean, potable water will become harder and harder to come by.
Hopefully this article has helped you on your quest for thirst-quenching purified water. Happy Purifying!
5 Essential Tips for Purifying Water for Drinking
- Boil the water for at least one minute to kill off any bacteria or parasites.
- Use a water filter that is designed to remove bacteria, parasites, and other contaminants.
- Add chlorine or iodine tablets to the water to kill off any remaining bacteria or parasites.
- Let the water sit in an open container for 24 hours so that any chlorine or iodine can evaporate.
- Test the water with a home testing kit to make sure it is safe to drink.
ALSO: Consider investing in a portable water purification system if you plan on drinking from natural sources while outdoors!
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About The Author

Joseph Bartley
Editor-In-Chief
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Joseph Bartley, also known as the WaterFilterFanatic, is a seasoned content writer who specializes in water filtration and water quality topics. On AllAboutWaterFilters, he has written a range of water filtration system reviews, water health and quality articles, swimming pool, hot tub and aquarium filtration guides, DIY methods to assist people clean their drinking water, and much more. Joseph enjoys spending his time working with the #AllAboutWaterFilters Editorial Team to provide some of the best quality water filtration content available on the web.