SOLAR WATER PURIFIRE

PROJECT TRPORT
SUBMITTED TO Dr. ACHLA KAUSHAL & MR. VIKRAM CHOPRA
BY
VINAY. KR. SHARMA (1404031060)
TALIB IZHAR (1404031054)
VISHAL JAIN (1404031063)
SAHIL (1404031044)
MD. DANISH (1404031021)
STUDENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING,
GURU NANAK DEV INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
SECTOR- 15, ROHINI, DELHI-110085

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 CERTIFICATE

Certified That the Project Report is Submitted by the Student of Guru Nanak Dev Institute of
Technology, Rohini Sector-15, as partial fulfillment of Diploma in Chemical Engineering. This
project is carried out by following student under my supervision and guidance. The project
report is recommended for acceptance

Vinay kr. Sharma, Talib Izhar, Md. Danish Dr.Achla Kaushal

Vishal Jain, Sahil Mr. Vikram chopra

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This project could not take a shape without the help and guidance of several persons. It is
great pleasure for us to express my thanks individually to all the people who have helped me
along the way and shaping the report in present form.
By heart, I especially thankful to Mr. vikram chopra, Dr. Achla kaushal, Smt. Ragini gupta, Mr.
yashpal who had made huge efforts for bringing the information of the project and its
working, principle, construction and problems and different ways for trouble shooting them.
We wish to express my gratitude to Mr. Vikram chopra for their keen guidance in project
making.

Vinay kr. Sharma, Talib Izhar, Md. Danish

Vishal Jain, Sahil

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 CONTENT

1. Introduction 6
2. Prelude 7
3. Current designs & their problem 8
4. Design 10
5. Specifications of distiller design 11
6. Design specifications 12
7. Design of the pump 15
8. Assembling and manufacture 17
9. Working 18
10. Usage 19
11. Market research 20
12. Impact 21

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 PICTURE LIST

1. Fig-1 general arrangement 10

2. Fig-2 isometric view of the distiller 11
3. Fig-3 structure of the stage reservoir 12
4. Fig-4 construction details of the distiller 14
5. Fig-5 design of the pump 15
6. Fig-6 construction of the pump 16

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INTRODUCTION
Solar water purification system is a water purification system at household level based on
solar radiation treatment and water distillation with additional use of solar heating. It is a
combination of two water purification processes, the solar water disinfection system (SODIS)
and the solar distillation process.
Distillation is one of many processes available for water purification and sunlight is one of
several forms of heat energy that can be used to power that process. Sunlight has the
advantage of zero fuel cost but it requires more space (for its collection) and generally more
costly equipment.
To dispel a common belief, it is not necessary to boil water to distill it. Simply increasing its
temperature, short of boiling, will adequately increase the evaporation rate. In fact, although
vigorous boiling hastens the distillation process it also can force unwanted residue into the
distillate, defeating purification. Furthermore, to boil water with sunlight requires more
costly apparatus than is needed to distill it a little more slowly without boiling.
For people concerned about the quality of their municipally supplied drinking water and
unhappy with other methods of additional purification available to them solar distillation of
tap water or brackish groundwater can be a pleasant energy efficient more option.
Solar distillation systems can be small or large. They are designed either to serve the needs
of a single family producing from 1/2 to 3 gallons of drinking water a day on the average or
to produce much greater amounts for an entire neighborhood or village. In some parts of
the world the scarcity of fresh water is partially overcome by covering shallow salt water
basins with glass in greenhouse like structures. These solar energy distilling plants are
relatively in expensive, low-technology systems especially useful where the need for small
plants exists.
Solar distillation of potable water from saline (salty) water has been practiced for many years
in tropical and sub-tropical regions where fresh water is scare. However, where fresh water
is plentiful and energy rates are moderate, the most cost-effective method has been to
pump and purify.

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PRELUDE
There are four possible ways of purifying water for drinking purpose:
1. Distillation
2. Filtration
3. Chemical treatment
4. Irradiative treatment
Considering the areas where the technology is intended to be used we can rule out few of
the above mentioned methods based on the unavailability of materials or costs. Chemical
treatment is not a stand-alone procedure and so is irradiative treatment. Both can act only
remove some specific impurities and hence only be implemented in coordination with other
technologies.
This analysis leaves us with two methods – Distillation and Filtration. By weighting the
positive and negatives of both methods we decided to go by the first one. The most
important considerations were that of complexity, higher maintenance and subsequent
costs coupled with need of other sophisticated supporting equipment.
Finally, we decided to go by distillation method owing to the following benefits:
1. It produces water of high quality.
2. Maintenance is almost negligible.
3. Any type of water can be purified into potable water by means of this process.
4. The system will not involve any moving parts and will not require electricity to
operate.
5. Wastage of water will be minimum unlike reverse osmosis in which almost 30% of
the loaded water flows out in form of unusable water that can only be used for toilet
or other cleaning purposes.

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CURRENT DESIGN & THEIR PROBLEMS
We will use a V-shape multi stage solar still design. The basic improvement that we suggest
is to use low pressure inside the distiller. This will greatly affect the rate of evaporation and
hence rate of condensation on the cooler surface.
After going through the various existing designs of solar systems there are a few facts that
come to picture:
1. The efficiency of single stage system is around 20%.
2. The efficiency of multistage system is higher than 30%.
3. Mostly people use three staged systems because for more stages the cost outweighs
the utility.
4. Most of the losses can be attributed to heat transfer losses.
5. Thermal losses are mostly in form conduction and convection and very little by
radiation owing to low temperatures. So we can assume radiative losses to be
negligible.
Also the cost of a solar still which produces reasonable amount of purified water is high.
The cost of water produced by the still is high.
While perusing and pondering about the ways to reduce costs the first factor that comes to
mind is why not increase the efficiency. But as we all know this is much easier said than
done. After giving it a considerable thought we came up with a design that can greatly
improve the efficiency of a solar water distillation system by minimizing thermal losses.
The equations governing the heat transfer rates are:
1. Conduction
Q = -k A dT / dx
2. Convection
Q = h A (T surface – T ambient)
Both the losses are greatly dependent on the area and temperature difference between
the medium such as water and ambient. Hence if we are reducing temperature of the whole
system we can reduce the heat loss and hence improve the efficiency.

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But reducing operating temperature will come at the cost of lower rated of evaporation and
consequently lower rated of condensation leading to slower distillation. So now the problem
boils down to increasing the rated of evaporation at low temperature.
(Mass loss rate) / (Unit area) = (Vapor Pressure - Ambient Partial Pressure) * sqrt
((Molecular Weight)/ (2*pi*R*T))

The vapour pressure of a liquid at a given temperature is a characteristic property of that

liquid vapour pressure of a liquid is intimately connected to boiling point.

Vapor Pressures are influenced by Temperature logarithmically and this relationship is

defined with the Clausius Clapyron Equation:

Log P2 / P1 = Delta H vaporization [ 1 / T1 - 1/ T2] / 2.303 (R)

where:
R = universal gas law constant = 8.31 J/ mol-K = 8.31 X 10-3 Kj / mol-K

P1 and P2 = vapor pressure at T1 and T2

T1 and T2 = Kelvin Temperature at the initial state and final state

At 373K the pressure is 1 atm.

We all know that boiling takes place when the ambient temperature equals that of the vapor
pressure of the liquid. This means that we can increase the rate of evaporation by reducing
the pressure of the vessel. This will ensure higher rates of evaporation even at low
temperatures.

Capacity of distiller is 30 liters of water daily.

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DESIGN
As stated already, we need to reduce the working pressure inside the distiller to increase the
rate of evaporation at lower temperatures and hence increase efficiency. One more
additional feature in the distiller that we are proposing is that it would use the latent heat
which is released during condensation to heat up the water at lower temperature. This is
achieved by using an innovative staged still design.
The basic arrangement of the system can be described as follows

Fig1. General arrangement

In the design we have incorporated a pump which is a simple manually operated vacuum
pump to reduce air pressure inside the distillation chamber. We are looking at operating
conditions of about 60 oC to ensure low heat transfer losses. At this temperature the
vapor pressure of water is 20 kPa. So we need to operate the pump to reduce the pressure
to this value and then leave it in the sun for distillation. This will ensure boiling of water inside
the distiller as soon as the temperature reaches 60 oC, which is pretty low and easily
achievable by using simple designs. Actually we plan to use a slight modification of the
regular cycle pump that is available everywhere.

For the purpose of design we will assume a very low conversion efficiency of around 20%.
This will ensure that water is available in excess and also when there is not ample sunlight.
Given the highly erratic supply of sunlight which depends greatly on weather conditions we
have to over design it for high factor of safety – in this case 2. In real life we expect the
efficiency to be higher than 40%.

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SPECIFICATIONS OF DISTILLER DESIGN

Fig.2. Isometric View of the Distiller

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DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS
The Distiller is made of the following parts:

1. Tempered Glass Plate

Glass has the property of selectively allowing only the higher energy radiation to
pass through and blocking the longer wavelengths. This particular property aids
in the distiller as it captures most of the incoming higher energy radiation but
does not allow it to radiate back. This also serves as a condensing surface being
open to atmosphere it will always be at a lower temperature than the water
inside. It is made slanting so that any water droplets that are formed finally move
along the gradient where they finally deposit the condensate into collector.

2. Top water reservoir

Water is stored on top just under the glass plate. This water needs to be
recharged every day. The floor of the container is painted black to maximize the
irradiation capture. The paint needs to be not water soluble and dried in sun
before use to prevent any sort of oil or volatile contents. The side reservoir walls
are insulated and the bottom is conducting.

Figure 3 Structure of the stage reservoir

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3. Staged Water Reservoirs
Below the topmost reservoir lie two more stages of water reservoirs and side
walls insulated and the bottom wall conducting. The shape is such that all
condensate moves down to a point and drops into the collecting tubes which
run all the way down and out of the distiller into storage.

4. Lowermost Reservoir
The lowermost reservoir is designed differently than the above 3. We need to
make it different so that evaporation takes place from this and then condenses
on the first stage and delivers heat to it. Then it repeats with the second stage
and so on. For achieving higher temperatures, we have added tubes coated
with black joining the deeper water level to the surface water. This will ensure
that the cooler water at bottom is heated up by absorbing solar radiation and
added to the surface where it can evaporate faster. There is no need of a pump
for maintaining the circulation natural convection induced because of density
difference will take care of that.

5. Pump
The pump used is an ordinary cycle pump with a few minor modifications. We
have introduced three one way valves –
a. one on the inlet,
b. one on the piston and
c. one on the exit.

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Figure 4 Construction details of the distiller

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DESIGN OF THE PUMP
The working is fairly simple – The inlet joins to the distiller and when the pump is pushed
down the air is drawn from inside the distiller (a) is open and other two are closed. When
pressure inside lower part increased beyond atmospheric the exit valve will open to
discharge air into ambient. While pulling back the piston valve will open and other two will
close thus transferring the air into the exit chamber from inlet chamber. The process will
continue till the required pressure is achieved.

Fig. 5. Design of the pump.

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Figure 6 construction details of the pump

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ASSEMBLING AND MANUFACTURE
Fabrication of the whole unit is pretty straight forward and involves metal cutting, welding,
glass cutting, sealing, painting and drilling. All these processes can be done at any local
workshop using simple machines – lathe, drill, welding, milling etc.

The steps in the process of assembling are outlined as follows:

1. The outer box will be fabricated first. It will be made of double wall and will be filled
with glass wool to provide insulation.
2. The stages will be fabricated second the collector holes will be made at the time of
fabrication. Finally the stages will be assembled inside the outer covering.
3. The collector tubes are then made and attached to the lowermost stage.
4. The holes are provided for
a. Collecting distilled water
b. Transporting saline water
c. To attach the pump
5. The whole system is sealed using sealant to prevent the air from leaking in from the
atmosphere.
6. Finally, after the whole procedure is over the glass cover is installed on top. This is
the last step as glass is the most fragile material we are using for the design.

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WORKING
The working is based on phenomena of evaporation on absorption of heat from sunlight
and subsequent condensation of vapor on contact with the cooler walls.

1. Pump is used to reduce the pressure inside the chamber to around 20 kPa to
ensure boiling takes place at 60 oC.
2. The sunlight is captured by the glass cover and absorbed by the black floor of the
top reservoir.
3. Water gets heated up and evaporates thus making the air saturated with vapor.
4. This water also supplies to the two stage troughs by means of tubes running down
and flow is controlled by the level control valves.
5. When this saturated air comes in contact with cooler glass cover it condenses and
forms droplets. Due to combined effect of inclination and gravity the droplets move
and drop into the collector. This water is conveyed to the storage from here.
6. Water evaporates in the lowermost reservoir taking up heat for raising
temperature and phase change. When this condenses on the cooler ceiling it gives
out the latent heat and small amount of specific heat to the reservoir above it.
Hence no heat is lost in the water going out in form of condensate but is reformed
as useful heat for the next subsequent stage. This improves efficiency tremendously.

7. The same process as described in 7 repeats in the next two stages. This ensures
maximum utilization of the captured heat and finally all the water falls into a
common collector system which is so designed to minimize any sort of losses.

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USAGE
The usage will involve following steps: -

1. The user will fill the reservoir tank with water that needs to be purified.
2. Attach the vacuum pump to the apparatus and operate it till the pressure inside
drops to around 20kPa. Then remove the pump.
3. Attach the pipe for collecting the purified water.
4. Then he will lift the whole device up a few meters above the ground (around 2.5
m). This will ensure no shadows fall on the apparatus during any part of the day.
5. Leave it there till evening.
6. Remove the purified water for use.
7. Remove the plates for cleaning and dispose of the remaining water.
8. Ready for use on the next day.

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MARKET RESEARCH
The market for the product includes whole of rural Indian population and some of the water
scarce urban areas like Chennai. This comprises around 70% of India’s population. The
exact number being 70cores. Assuming around 10 % of them will actually be interested in
buying this product the demand for the product is 70*.1/ 5 = 1.4 crore units.

This makes the market size to come up to around Rs 140 crore.

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IMPACT
The impact of this kind of a product to the rural Indian will be tremendous. One of the
greatest problems facing the Indian villages is that of drinking water. Water ranks very high
on the United Nations’s list of scarce commodities that need urgent conservation
measures. In the desert and other semi-arid regions this device will prove to be a great life
saver.

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