"Wash" isn't really the right word, I shouldn't have used it - when you're washing a solution you're... here, example: Compound A, water, hydrocarbon B. B and water are immiscible; like oil and water, they will stand apart. Compound A is soluble in both, and can be easily separated from (say) the water, but not easily separated from hydrocarbon B. A is currently dissolved in B. So! You takes your solution of B + A, you puts it in your specially designed funnel which probably has a fancy name, but basically it has a valve at the bottom and a stopper opening at the top, and you adds your water. Then you shake them around and let the water (only the water) out the bottom. The water carries with it a bunch of Compound A, now dissolved in the water. You can keep doing this, to extract more and more of A in a larger volume of water, and then you perform whatever magic you want on the water (distillation, whatever) to get A out of the water. So that's washing.
The safety of the water - that would be the trick. When you react a thing with another thing, you can put in a lot of one thing and pretty much guarantee that all of the other thing gets reacted. So if you had a nontoxic thing to use a lot of, then all of your toxic other thing could get reacted. If the toxic thing is then being bound up in a precipitate (an insoluble reaction product, so you pour two liquid solutions together and BAM white flakes appear at the bottom of your container) then you can pour off the remaining solution and have a nontoxic solution of water + whatever was left behind by the reaction, and a pile of damp toxic powder.
You might well need to do this several times to get a final, totally nontoxic result. So, like,
I2(l) + H2O(l) <- -> OI-(aq) + 2H+(aq) + I-(aq)
So then you would do something like
Ag+(aq) + NO3-(aq) + I-(aq) -> AgI(s) + NO3-(aq)
The nitrate is a spectator ion, you're left with nitric acid in water, basically. Also, please note that I'm just tossing this off, please don't actually depend on my napkin chemistry for your personal survival.
You let the solution sit for a bit so the AgI(s) precipitates and settles, and then you pour off the nitric acid solution and... distill it? Find some nitrate compound that's insoluble (iirc, those are few and far between)? Something like that. You definitely don't want to drink nitric acid. But, actually, if you can get it back then you just need a source of silver, because the nitric acid goes over the silver and then you've got your silver nitrate again.
Fillings might be useful in bulk, but there's just not that much silver in them. You'd be better off with a mine or jewelry workshop or something.
The internet also thinks I'm overthinking this, mostly it looks like activated carbon will take iodine out of water.
Which doesn't rule out your water cult! You can still take a bucket of murky, ticking water, pour it in a thing, light a fire under it,
OH ALSO I wonder if you can heat iodine off? Because it's a dissolved gas, basically distill it rather than the water? You would need to keep it below the boiling point of water for a long time, probably, and the water losses would be enormous if it even worked...
Anyway, light a fire, mystery bubblings! *jazz hands* (distillation) + mystery dribblings! *jazz hands* (activated carbon filtration) -> clean water, like magic. Wow! So cult. Many follower.
This site was useful for the iodine in water reaction and the recommendation for activated carbon filtration.
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The safety of the water - that would be the trick. When you react a thing with another thing, you can put in a lot of one thing and pretty much guarantee that all of the other thing gets reacted. So if you had a nontoxic thing to use a lot of, then all of your toxic other thing could get reacted. If the toxic thing is then being bound up in a precipitate (an insoluble reaction product, so you pour two liquid solutions together and BAM white flakes appear at the bottom of your container) then you can pour off the remaining solution and have a nontoxic solution of water + whatever was left behind by the reaction, and a pile of damp toxic powder.
You might well need to do this several times to get a final, totally nontoxic result. So, like,
I2(l) + H2O(l) <- -> OI-(aq) + 2H+(aq) + I-(aq)
So then you would do something like
Ag+(aq) + NO3-(aq) + I-(aq) -> AgI(s) + NO3-(aq)
The nitrate is a spectator ion, you're left with nitric acid in water, basically. Also, please note that I'm just tossing this off, please don't actually depend on my napkin chemistry for your personal survival.
You let the solution sit for a bit so the AgI(s) precipitates and settles, and then you pour off the nitric acid solution and... distill it? Find some nitrate compound that's insoluble (iirc, those are few and far between)? Something like that. You definitely don't want to drink nitric acid. But, actually, if you can get it back then you just need a source of silver, because the nitric acid goes over the silver and then you've got your silver nitrate again.
Fillings might be useful in bulk, but there's just not that much silver in them. You'd be better off with a mine or jewelry workshop or something.
The internet also thinks I'm overthinking this, mostly it looks like activated carbon will take iodine out of water.
Which doesn't rule out your water cult! You can still take a bucket of murky, ticking water, pour it in a thing, light a fire under it,
OH ALSO I wonder if you can heat iodine off? Because it's a dissolved gas, basically distill it rather than the water? You would need to keep it below the boiling point of water for a long time, probably, and the water losses would be enormous if it even worked...
Anyway, light a fire, mystery bubblings! *jazz hands* (distillation) + mystery dribblings! *jazz hands* (activated carbon filtration) -> clean water, like magic. Wow! So cult. Many follower.
This site was useful for the iodine in water reaction and the recommendation for activated carbon filtration.