INTRODUCTION

There is an important need for clean, pure drinking water in many developing countries.
Often water sources are brackish (i.e. contain dissolved salts) and/or contain harmful bacteria
and therefore cannot be used for drinking. In addition, there are many coastal locations where
seawater is abundant but potable water is not available. Pure water is also useful for batteries and
in hospitals or schools.

Distillation is one of many processes that can be used for water purification. This requires
an energy input, as heat, solar radiation can be the source of energy. In this process, water is
evaporated, thus separating water vapour from dissolved matter, which is condensed as pure
water. Solar water distillation is a solar technology with a very long history and installations
were built over 2000 years ago, although to produce salt rather than drinking water. Documented
use of solar stills began in the sixteenth century.

Solar distillation is a relatively simple treatment of brackish (i.e. contain

dissolved salts) water supplies. Solar energy is a low tech option. In this process, water is
evaporated, using the energy of the sun then the vapour condenses as pure water.This process
removes salts and other impurities.
Solar distillation is used to produce drinking water or to produce pure water for lead acid
batteries, laboratories, hospitals and in producing commercial products such as rose water. It is
recommended that drinking water has 100 to 1000 mg/l of salt to maintain electrolyte levels and
for taste. Some saline water may need to be added to the distilled water for acceptable drinking
water.
Solar water distillation is a very old technology. It has been used for emergency
situations including navy introduction of inflatable stills for life boats. There are a number of
other approaches to desalination, such as photovoltaic powered for which small-scale
commercially available equipment is available; solar distillation has to be compared with these
options to determine its appropriateness to any situation. If treatment of polluted water is
required rather than desalination, slow sand filtration is a low cost option.
PROBABLE CONTENTS OF THE SEMINAR:
1] Introduction
2] Design Objective for an Efficient Solar Water Distillation
3] Selection of material
4] Basic Design of Solar Water Distillation
5] Hybrid PVT System
6] Overall View Of Solar Water Distillation
(I) Advantages of the system
(II) Disadvantages of the system
7] Conculsion