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Home » Blog » Free Energy » Make Free Drinking Water from Sea Water

Make Free Drinking Water from Sea Water

LAST UPDATED ON MARCH 18, 2019 BY SWAGATAM — 15 COMMENTS

The post explains a cheap yet effective method of desalinating large quantities of sea water into free drinking water at
home. The idea was requested by Mr. Mike.

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1. Technical Speci cations 741 IC Circuits (19)
2. The Design
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2.1. The Solar Re ector Setup
2.2. How to make the re ector lens. Arduino Engineering Projects (83)
2.3. Treating the Distilled Water Audio Projects (94)
2.4. Feedback from Mr. Mike Cardenas
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Technical Speci cations
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This is Mike Cardenas and am writing to you with reference to your invention of a Solar Water desalination set-up from Decorative Lighting (Diwali, Christmas) (32)
2011 which I came across. You will recollect attaching this diagram in that article:
DIY LED Projects (91)

I am part of a non-government organization which is a small Rotary Club that adopted a very poor and typhoon-prone, Electronic Components (99)

saltwater shing village named Dolores in central Philippines with 2,000 people, no electricity and little fresh water Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory (36)

recently ravaged by a supertyphoon. Electronics Tutorial (115)

Fish Aquarium (5)
We endeavored to rehabilitate their lives since the last major storm wiped out their means of livelihood by replacing
Free Energy (34)
their shing boats and rebuilding their homes with sturdier materials.
Fun Projects (13)
They do need fresh water for drinking and even if they dig wells, the water they would get from those is still salty. After GSM Projects (9)
exploring commercial desalination using reverse osmosis, the costs are simply just prohibitive and they would be Health Related (20)
dependent on supply of those expensive membranes that need to be imported from Germany. Heater Controllers (28)
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Always believed that nothing happens by accident and when I saw your invention, it gave me hope.
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If the average person needs six liters of water daily, that community of 2,000 would need 12,000 liters daily. May I ask if Incubator Related (6)
you have performed calculations to determine the fresh water yields for an optimum sized desalination setup which you Industrial Electronics (28)
invented?
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What they do have there is lots of sun and if produced in enough quantity, your invention should be able to address their Inverter Circuits (98)

fresh water needs. Laser Projects (12)

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After running through your website, also noticed that you focused on electric and electronic subjects. Quite impressive
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and, in fact, would like to personally participate in there myself. For now, I hope that you can spend some time with me
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on your invention and perhaps we can bring it to service these folks needs.
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Your help and participation is truly appreciated. Thank you so much for your time and attention. Best personal regards. Motor Controller (66)
Mike MPPT (7)
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The Design
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You might have come across the other related article from this website, which presented a simple and an innovative
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approach for forcing a rapid sea water desalination process through solar heat, completely free of cost.
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The idea utilized the advantage of a convex lens phenomenon under the sun which enables concentration of the sun
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energy over a small area, thus collecting substantial amounts of heat over the targeted area.
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The idea made use of a cylindrical glass vessel led with water in order to implement an inherent natural convex lens for Ultrasonic Projects (16)
the process. Water Level Controller (45)

However acquiring a cylindrical glass vessel and that too in large sizes can be extremely dif cult for anybody who would
be interested to have a go with the discussed concept.

The idea presented in this article exploits an identical principle for implementing a rapid sea water desalination but
eliminates the need of the complicated cylindrical vessel.

As may be witnessed in the following layout image, here we employ the age old technique of a concave re ector device
for executing the same.

The Solar Re ector Setup

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The set up may be understood as follows:

The concave lens is made by curving a polished steel or tin sheet at some calculated radius, and its focal point is noted
with some trial and error.

A transparent bucket is clamped as shown in the gure right at the middle of the re ector where the focal point is
supposed to be at the optimal level.

A transparent vessel is recommended to further speed up the heating process, since transparent quality helps to hold the
long waves of the sun rays inside the vessel much better than an opaque vessel, which in turn results in greater heat
retention, and vaporization of water.

The bucket can be seen having a lid with a PVC pipe glued over a hole at its center and terminating outwards towards
the collecting vessel positioned a little below on the right side of the re ector assembly.

When this unit is placed in an open area under peak sunshine....the sun rays can be expected to be re ected back and
focused sharply over the bucket lled with sea water.

Due to the intense heat concentration, the water inside the bucket may be expected to reach around 90 degrees Celsius
temperature within 1/2 an hour, and the process of vaporization initialized.

Once this begins, the water may be expected to enter the PVC pipe and pass outwards and in the process cool down to
form distilled water droplets, which might be seen dropping into the collector vessel positioned below the pipe opening.

How to make the re ector lens.

This does not need to be essentially circular or radial in shape. A rectangular polished tin sheet measuring around 7 by 3
feet, and appropriately curved as shown below might do the job quite effectively:

Treating the Distilled Water

Just as sea water is strictly not recommended for drinking, distilled water too can be dangerous for our body, if not
treated appropriately.

This is because distilled water is void of the essential minerals that a normal tap water possesses, which helps to keep
the mineral content in our body balanced and prevents from getting washed away with the water.

Owing to this criterion, the above explained desalinated distilled water might need a manual treatment to restore the
lost minerals in it.

This could be probably implemented by adding 1 part of sea water to 35 parts of distilled water, which might help revert
the free desalinated water from sea water to acquire its original drinkable properties and become safe for drinking.

Feedback from Mr. Mike Cardenas

Thank you so much for your rapid response, Swag. Apologies for my delayed response. Saw your recent innovation to your
previous idea.
Brilliant!

Way back in college, I saw my professor work on a solar water heater mack-up using a concave re ector made of
re ective sheet metal on a steel frame about ten meters long and a meter wide but its sole purpose was heating up
water in a tube.

Never really did get involved in it and sadly the man passed away a while back. However the fabrication of a parabolic
shaped concave re ector (and its daily cleaning) and manual handling of receptacles is well within the parameters of
that shing town.

May I pick your wonderful brains some more, please? Taking the cue from your guidance, instead of my professors ten
meter tube to make hot water, the creation of an array of individual receptacles made of glass (that won't easily crack
due to heat, of course) boiling seawater into steam then collecting its fresh water condensate in a detachable bucket
would also address individual distribution requirements.

And while it may be labor intensive, there are many hands who could participate within that shing village.

The optimum size of that bucket should be a function of the amount of steam that can be condensed into liquid which
can be collected on a sunny day.

The optimum volume of the glass container feeding the pail should be a bit more than what can be turned into steam so
that the remaining highly saline water can be easily disposed of so that no additional work need be performed scraping
off salt from a very dry glass receptacle.

Don't expect that you have worked on metrics for this invention just yet so I will perform some rough calculations and
would very much appreciate your reviewing them before my performing an experiment to verify the numbers. Will need
to brush up a bit but am targeting to have those ready for your review this coming weekend.

Truly appreciate very much your coming to my rescue. Looking forward making this into a reality and take care of that
shing village. And possibly more. Have a great week ahead and best personal regards.

Mike

How to Make a Parabolic re ector using a tin sheet and a few nut/bolts:
A parabolic or a conical re ector would be more effective since here heat would be allowed to concentrate from all the
corners into one spot.

The following image shows the steps required to make a cheap parabolic or a conical re ector with a piece of shiny tin
or steel sheet:

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About Swagatam
I am an electronic engineer (dipIETE ), hobbyist, inventor, schematic/PCB designer, manufacturer. I am also the
founder of the website: https://www.homemade-circuits.com/, where I love sharing my innovative circuit ideas
and tutorials.
If you have any circuit related query, you may interact through comments, I'll be most happy to help!

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Jukka Salo says

December 23, 2021 at 10:40 pm
Hi.
I just found your great pages by searhing electronics but got into also this subject.
Small case puri er could also msd e with cheap freshnell sheats.
Those are avalable diffent sizes.

Jukka

REPLY

Swagatam says
December 24, 2021 at 7:54 am
Thank you for your valuable feedback, much appreciated.

REPLY

Scott says
October 24, 2021 at 12:08 am
Hello
Very well done and appreciated. I understand your methodology, but could I communicate with you over email to design
a small portable backyard system?
Thank you
Scott

REPLY

Swagatam says
October 24, 2021 at 10:37 am
Thank you, I am glad you found it useful. You can explain it here, I will try to help!

REPLY

So a says
October 8, 2021 at 8:41 pm
Hello,

Thank you for sharing this amazing innovation! We are currently doing a group project trying to combat salinity in soil.
We were thinking of using your method to convert saline water into freshwater. However, I wanted to ask if you think this
mechanism could be made in a bigger scale?

Best wishes,
So a

REPLY

Swagatam says
October 8, 2021 at 9:47 pm
Thank you for liking the concept! You can de nitely upgrade the design to a larger scale for processing larger
amounts of saline water.

You can probably use long parabolic mirrors and install a pipe at the focal point region of the mirror, then passing
water through the pipe will cause the water to boil and vaporize, causing water vapor to be produced at the other
end of the pipe:

REPLY

vijay says
June 7, 2020 at 11:54 pm
lot more physics to be noted here …. the condensate system has to be kept in closed cool shade far away from direct
sunlight as the water may evaporate if humidity is less … how to achieve a large scale desalination…

REPLY

Swagatam says
June 8, 2020 at 10:00 am
The condensate can be covered with a lid and funnel system to avoid evaporation. For large scale the second concept
given in the following article can be applied:

https://www.homemade-circuits.com/make-your-own-rapid-sea-water/

REPLY

David Barner says

February 1, 2017 at 9:01 pm
How much more would be required to use the boiling water to create steam pressure that could then be used to run a
generator to produce electricity, then condensed back to the drinking water. Killing two birds with one stone so to speak,
power and water from the same device.

REPLY

Swagatam says
February 2, 2017 at 4:35 am
yes, using concave lenses should allow achieving the required boiling point for water which could be used in a steam
powered engine and subsequently the ejected steam could be cooled down for getting puri ed water supply.

REPLY

Swagatam says
August 31, 2016 at 2:09 am
for larger production the following could e tried

https://www.homemade-circuits.com/2016/03/greywater-puri er-desalination-system.html

another method is to dig large shallow trenches on ground, ll it up with sea water and cover it transparent sheets,
these sheets could be inclined at some angle so that when evaporated water hits their inner surface the angle allows
it to slide down and collect in an appropriate container.

REPLY

Prashanth Suvarna says

May 12, 2016 at 4:40 pm
Dear Swagatam, I'm also a self made man deeply into electronics as well as solar. The common link between the two is
that I'm also a innovative cable operator with an intimate knowledge in the subject of satellite �� reception. You may
be able to get more "mileage" on the above if you were to use a C band dish antenna of about 12 feet for the purpose as
the accuracy here is much, much more than the one that you have suggested, besides they are quite freely available
anywhere and can be readily adopted for the purpose. Another factor in your favour is that they can be easily modi ed to
track the sun, something that I think cannot be done in your proposed unit, leading to an unprecedented increase in its
ef ciency..I personally think it's a win, win situation for all here. Do give it a go. I'd be glad to help you out in this
connection if you require any assistance.PZ do not hesitate to drop a line. prashanth58in@re diffmail.com

REPLY

Swagatam says
May 13, 2016 at 3:18 am
Thanks very much for the valuable information Prashanth, I appreciate it a lot.

If you can provide more info on this I would be most happy to include the data in my website as a new article. I am
sure the viewers would appreciate it too…you can send to my email:

admin at homemade-circuits.com

REPLY

Unknown says
March 11, 2016 at 1:38 am
Dear Mr Swagatam,

I am not educated in physics neither chemistry but it doesn't take a nuclear scientist to understand your concept and its
brilliance. Congrats on your effort to try to make the world a better place, as I believe that desalination is the way of the
future as fresh water concerns.

I have a question that you might be able to help me with:

it is obvious that this process will only work during the day (unless you are in Norway with the midnight sun 😉 ) so the
number of operating hours is limited, do you have any idea of size vs GPD production. Also from what angle of sun will
the system starts to operate?

REPLY

Swagatam says
March 11, 2016 at 7:49 am
Thanks you very much,

I am afraid the circuit won't be too effective in non-tropical countries. In countries like India the unit would de nitely
work with full throttle from 10 am to 4 pm.

for a large scale production, one can try incorporating series of such concave lenses, and run transparent PVC pipes
across the focal lengths of the lens….these pipes could be fed with water from one end, while the other could be
terminated with an overhead tank for collecting the distilled water.

REPLY

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