How to deionize water ? - (Dec/01/2006 )

Hi all,

I recently took a job to start a biotech lab that pretty much concentrate on DNA isolation, amplification and sequencing, located in a developing country. My training was in Canada. Being in the job for a while now I face interesting challenges that I am sure have been the cause that the research in the country has not progressed to a state they'd like to be. Nevertheless, the reason I am writing is because the lab only has distilled water, with no deionizer/ultrapure water. I have a feeling that it will take months before I can persuade these people to get deionizer. Do you guyz have any idea of how to do this manually? I am not sure if I am being spoilt by whatever my Canadian lab used to have since I feel that distilled deionized water is a must to do these work, or is there a way to get around it?

I'm at a stage of 'shopping' for consummables, chemicals and reagents, really from scratch. Any tips on how to be thrifty or to survive? esp. in the third world countries where it takes 4-12 weeks just to order chemicals/reagents?

Any ideas/tips are appreciated.

Millipore and many others sell units which will make DI water in small quantities. But an alternative to think about is to simply buy molecular biology grade water in gallon jugs for a while, and use it sparingly in applications that matter, such as enzymatic reactions and PCR setup.