Can iodine tablets purify salt water?

For my science fair project I’m trying to find the best method of water purification. I want to use salt water for the experiments, but I want to know if iodine tablets can purify salt water. Thanks!


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2 Responses to “Can iodine tablets purify salt water?”

  • stellar_fury:

    If you’re trying to get the salt out of the salt water, it’s pretty unlikely that iodine is going to help. Based on HSAB theory, iodine is a "soft" ligand, whereas sodium and chlorine are both extremely "hard." This has to do with the electron configuration and number of shells around the atom. In essence, this means that sodium is going to prefer coordination with chlorine, far more than iodine.

    The reaction you’re presumably looking for – NaCl + I —> NaI + Cl – is pretty unfavorable. Also, I don’t think NaI is going to precipitate out of solution, so… all you’d be doing is adding iodine to salt water. Not to mention that the salt water probably already has iodine in it, if it’s been prepared with iodized salt.

    I think the best method available to you is probably distillation. Take salt water, boil it, and catch the water vapor with a condenser. The salt will be left behind in the bottom container, while you’ll have pure, distilled water in the condenser flask.

  • science teacher:

    No, iodine tablets can not purify water.

    Boiling can kill germs.
    In distillation, the salt stays behind and the water is purified.

    Look up desalination products.

    In quickly scanning the entries, I found that activated carbon was used to remove iodine from water. Also that iodine could be used similar to chlorine to kill germs. It will not take out salt though.

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