Performance Evaluation Of A Basin-Type Solar Distillery

ABSTRACT

Adequate quality and reliability of drinking water supply is a fundamental need. Without potable water or drinking water (less than about 500 ppm of salt) human life is not possible.

Only 1% of Earth’s water is in a fresh, liquid state, and nearly all of this is polluted by both diseases and toxic chemicals. For this reason, purification of water supplies is extremely important.

Keeping these things in mind, we have devised a model which will convert the saline ground water into pure and potable water using the renewable source of energy (i.e. solar energy). Solar energy is an abundant, never lasting, and available on site and pollution free energy. Solar Energy is freely available and can be used as a very cheap option to convert saline ground Water through Solar Distillation, by using Solar Stills. The conventional single basin and single slop Passive Solar Still can be used to purify water but the main problem is that the per square meter distillate output is less. So it is need to modify the design of solar still for high output of solar distillate

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 TITLE PAGE

APPROVAL PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWELDGEMENT

ABSTRCT

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER ONE

• INTRODUCTION
• OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
• SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
• LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0      LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1      LITERATURE REVIEW OF THE STUDY
2.2     HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
2.3      CLASSIFICATION OF SOLAR DISTILLATION

CHAPTER THREE

3.0      METHODOLOGY

3.1      ENERGY FLOW DIAGRAM OF THE STUDY
3.2      SYSTEM DESCRIPTION AND OPERATION

3.3      EVALUATION EQUATIONS

3.4      OPTIMIZATION OF THE SYSTEM

CHAPTER FOUR

4.1      MATERIALS

4.2      ESTIMATED COSTS

4.2      BASIN-TYPE PASSIVE SOLAR DISTILLERY PRODUCTION

4.3     DISTILLATION PURIFICATION CAPABILITIES

CHAPTER FIVE

5.1      CONCLUSIONS

5.2      RECOMMENDATION

5.2      REFERENCES

CHAPTER ONE

1.1                                                        INTRODUCTION

More than two-thirds of the earth’s surface is covered with water. Most of the available water is either present as seawater or icebergs in the Polar Regions. More than 97% of the earth’s water is salty; rest around 2.6% is fresh water. Less than 1% fresh water is within human reach. As the available fresh water is fixed on earth and its demand is increasing day by day due to increasing population and rapid advancement of industry, there is an essential and earnest need to get fresh water from the saline/brackish water present on or inside the earth.

Fresh water from saline/ brackish water can be obtained using different water treatment processes. According to World Health Organization (WHO), the permissible limit of salinity in water is 500 ppm and for special cases up to 1000 ppm while most of the water available on earth has the salinity up to 10,000 ppm whereas seawater normally has salinity in the range of35,000 – 45,000 ppm in the form of total dissolved salts. Excess brackishness causes the problem of taste, stomach problems and laxative effects. One of the control measures includes supply of water with total dissolved solids within permissible limits of 500 ppm or less. This is accomplished by several desalination methods like reverse osmosis, electro dialysis, vapour compression, multistage flash distillation, multiple-effect distillation and solar distillation, which are used for purification of water.

The Conventional method of producing fresh water is by burning fossil fuels. But this contributes to current energy crisis and environmental problems. Hence the need for non-conventional method in future seems necessary.

Solar distillation is a process where solar energy is used to produce fresh water from saline or brackish water for drinking, domestic and other purposes. The basic principles of solar distillation are simple, solar energy heats the water, as the temperature of water increases, vaporization occurs at the surface of water and water starts evaporating. The evaporated vapors are condensed at the condensing surface (glass surface). This distillate obtained is free from impurities such as salts and heavy metals. The evaporation process also kills the micro-organisms, thus giving a portable drinking water. Thus, solar energy can be important way of meeting fresh water requirement in future in regions with high solar insolation.

Solar distillation appears as one of the best practical and the most economical, especially for mass production of fresh water from high saline water like seawater. High energy cost of the evaporation process contributes most of the running expenditure in various distillation methods. The advantage of solar energy based small desalination plant is the requirement of small quantities of energy which is mostly collected from the sun. This should be the most economical solution to provide potable water to villagers residing at remote areas where proper infrastructure is lacking. Solar distillation looks very attractive as it utilizes the free source of energy the heat from the sun.

1.2                                               OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

This work focuses on evaluation of a basin-type solar distillery which is a systematic use of solar energy to evaporate water and collect its condensate within the same closed system. Unlike other forms of water purification it can turn salt or brackish water into fresh drinking water.

1.3                                           SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Basin-type solar distillery is easy to construct, can be done by local people from locally available materials, simple in operation by unskilled Personnel, no hard maintenance requirements and almost no operation cost. Simplest basin type models of solar still in earlier days, researchers have progressed a lot to increase its efficiency.

Suitable modification of Basin-type solar distillery can produce high output using minimum areas of land and even in cloudy days.

1.4                                             LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The most important factor that affects level of production of the solar distillery is the amount of solar radiation on the glass cover, called irradiance. Not all of the solar energy that contacts the glass will actually be used for evaporation of the water in the basin because it gets reflected and absorbed by anything it passes through.