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Solar power based portable water purification system

Conference Paper in AIP Conference Proceedings · July 2019

DOI: 10.1063/1.5118123

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 Solar Power Based Portable Water Purification System
P.T.Arasu1, M.S. Sulaiman1, A.L.Khalaf2, Z. M. Hussin1
1
Communication Technology Section, University Kuala Lumpur, British Malaysia Institute,
53100 Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia
Department of Computer Engineering Techniques,
Al-Mamoun University College,
10013 Baghdad, Iraq

*Corresponding author E-mail: punitha@unikl.edu.my

Abstract

Lack of clean drinking water in rural areas is a huge problem during the occurrences of floods and other environmental disasters. Often, it
takes a long time to transport potable water to these areas resulting in health issues to the local residents. In this research, a solar power based
water purification system using a cartridge heater to produce clean drinking water in flood affected areas or remote areas where potable
water is difficult to obtain is proposed. This water purification system uses a distillation technique, with an automatic valve which fills up a
tank and heats up the water. The steam is captured and flowed into a clean water holding tank. This project could provide a good solution for
providing clean drinking water to areas affected by floods.

Keywords: solar power, water heater, water purification, solar cell, green energy

health issues such as communicable diseases, predominantly faecal

1. Introduction oral diseases [5]. A huge risk of drinking water during floods is the
ingestion of bacteria, viruses or parasites that can lead to
gastrointestinal illness. While most such infections are not
Water is an essential element to ensure the continuation of life on
dangerous, usually causing diarrhoea, vomiting or both, prolonged
earth. Approximately 70% of the earth’s surface is covered with
symptoms can cause dehydration which can be life threatening.
water, out of which only 2.5% is fresh water [1]. However,
availability of potable water is a challenge in many developing
The spread of these diseases occur when faecal matter is consumed
countries. Availability of clean piped water, which is taken for
orally due to contamination of drinking water and food. This
granted in many areas, is not always a reality. Countries in
happens as decline in sanitation and lack of access to safe drinking
Southeast Asia are facing huge environmental challenges due to
water is common during floods. Other diseases such as
climate change effects caused by global warming [2]. The average
Leptospirosis are also common during floods due to increased
temperature of the earth has increased by approximately 0.8°C over
amount of rodent excrement in flood water. Table 1 shows some
the past 100 years. Other causes of severe weather such as floods
examples of waterborne diseases caused by consuming
and draughts have been attributed to the La Nina and El Nino
contaminated water.
events which have been made more severe due to global warming
[3]. The most common disasters are severe thunderstorms and
Table 1: Common diseases caused by drinking contaminated water
flooding. Floods make up approximately 40% of all natural
disasters in Asian countries as shown in figure 1[4].
Potential Health
Contaminants/Impurities
Effects

Nervous system
problems, anaemia,
Organic chemicals (acrylamide,
reproductive problems,
benzene etc.)
liver and kidney
problems, cancer risk.

Skin damage, thyroid,

Inorganic chemicals(antimony,
kidney and circulatory
arsenic, mercury etc)
system problems.

Fig. 1: Occurrence of Natural Disaster Events in Asia and the Pacific by Diarrhoea, vomiting,
Type[4] Microorganisms (cryptosporidium,
cramps, stomach
legionella, Escherichia coli, etc)
problems.
Flooding is a major concern as it causes serious problems such as
loss of life and property, health issues and agricultural degradation.
In August 2017 alone, 41 million people in South Asia were
affected by floods and the 1200 people lost their lives [4].
A major concern during floods is illness due to water related

1

Ionic (chlorines, bromines, fluorides, Eye/nose irritation,
etc.) stomach problems.
Allergies, Stone and
Colloidal impurities (clay, silica, etc.)
stomach problems.
Outbreaks of leptospirosis occurred in Brazil (1983, 1988 and
1996), in Nicaragua (1995), Krasnodar region, Russian Federation
(1997), Santa Fe, USA (1998) Orissa, India (1999) and Thailand
(2000) [6].
While there no water shortage during floods, it is not potable water
as it is most likely contaminated by harmful germs and bacteria
from sewage, animal droppings and garbage.
In this project, a method to provide clean drinking water using a
distillation method is proposed. Water is heated using a solar
powered heating rod and the clean steam is collected using
condensation method. The resultant water that is collected is safe to
drink and be used in preparing food. This project can be further
expanded to be used for situations other that floods where clean
water is difficult to obtain.
2. Background
Distillation is a very good technique to produce clean and safe
drinking water [7]. The process of distillation to produce potable
water has been around for centuries. The “hydrologic cycle” is
nature’s natural distillation process, where water from the surface
of the earth gets heated by the sun and evaporates to form clouds.
This evaporated water is clean and uncontaminated, and is same as
steam. When the atmospheric temperature falls, the vaporized water
from the clouds will fall back to the earth in liquid form, as rain.
This same principle can be used to produce clean and safe drinking
water in areas where there is difficulty in obtaining it, especially in
cases of natural disasters such as floods.
Fig. 2: The hydrologic cycle [8]
One of the oldest methods for distillation is the Multistage Flash
Distillation (MSFD) method [9]. Impure water is boiled and
pumped into a number of vessel connected in series. The decreasing
pressure in each stage causes the generation of vapour which is
collected as pure water. This method produces a large quantity of
potable water however it is a large and expensive system that may
not be suitable to be used as a temporary solution during disasters.
Multiple Effect Distillation (MED) is another established method of
distillation, where water is heated to form vapour [10]. The
condensed vapour on the top of the first cell heats and evaporates
water in the next cell. This process repeats for the number of cells
used. Although the productivity of this system is comparatively
high, it is costly as the numbers of stages are increased.
In Vapour Compression Distillation (VCD) method, a compressor
is used to compress the vapour from the heated water [11]. This
causes the pressure and temperature of the vapours to increase and
subsequently condensed to form pure water. The VCD system is
relatively complicated and uses a compressor to provide energy to
heat the water.
All methods discussed above require heating up water using
electricity, natural gas or oil to heat up the water. Heating is a
process that usually requires energy from electricity, gas or other
fossil fuels. In today’s world, where there is a diminishing supply of
fossil fuel as well as a need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel
in view of global warming concerns, there is an urgent need to
explore a cleaner and greener alternative to fossil fuels. In our
research, we propose a solar based heating system to provide clean
energy for heating up the water. A solar based system is both cost
effective and environment friendly.
3. Solar Powered Heating
Solar power based heating has been around for the past few decades
[7], [12], [13]. It is usually used for supplying hot water in homes
and office buildings. A solar cell absorbs sunlight and converts the
solar energy into electricity. Polycrystalline solar cells, like the type
used in this project, are made of high purity metallurgical silicon
using a chemical purification process.
In a polycrystalline solar cell, P and N type silicon crystals are
stacked over each other as shown in Figure 3. Electricity is then
generated by the photovoltaic effect when light strikes the crystals.
This energy can be used to power up equipment or stored in a
battery.
Fig. 3: Solar cell electricity generation
Solar powers promises to be a strong contender for green energy
sources. It is a renewable supply that is plentiful and clean. A solar
based water distillation system studied in this research shows strong
potential in future energy efficient applications.
4. Methodology
The setup of the solar powered water purification system is given in
Figure 4. The type of solar cells used was high efficiency
polycrystalline cells with 12 Volt, 240W capacity each. A 24 volt
600W immersion heater was used to heat up the water. A 12 volt
rechargeable battery was used as a backup power source and to
store excess power from the solar cells.
A storage tank made of aluminium with 50 litres capacity was
modified to fit in the heater as well as inlet and overflow pipes.
Raw water is filled into the tank using the inlet pipe and is heated
up by the immersion heater. As the steam collects at the roof of the
tank, it condenses and collects at the modified lip at the base of the
roof. The clean water collected at the lip flows to a collection bottle
at the base of the system.
The solar powered water purification system was tested under
various conditions. Initial tests were conducted to observe the
volume of pure water produced at different times of the day as the
sun’s brightness varies.
2
 Fig. 4: Setup of the Solar Water Purification System
5. Results and Discussion
The system was tested in an open area to observe the volume of
water collected based on the intensity of the sun. This was carried
out based on the time of the day. The results were collected over a
period of 7 days and averaged. The trend of the data collected is
displayed in Figure 5. It was observed that as the intensity of the
sun grew higher, based on the time, the volume of water produced
was also higher. The peak water production was between 12 noon
and 1 pm. This agrees with other reported work on solar based
systems [13], [14].
Fig. 5: Volume of water collected versus time of the day
The above result is caused by the heat transfer from the surrounding
causing the water to in the container to reach boiling point faster.
The efficiency of the solar cells also increases as the intensity of the
sun increases.
These results also agree with the working principle of solar cells,
where energy is transferred from photons in the sun’s rays to
electrons in the solar cell. The higher the number of photons
absorbed by the solar cell, the greater the current produced. The
short circuit current depends strongly on the amount of sunlight
falling on the surface of the solar cell. The output voltage is
dependent on the material of the solar cell [15].
The electrical power produced by the solar cell is a product of the
open circuit voltage and the short circuit current through the device.
As the voltage is fixed, the highest power is obtained when the
current is at the maximum value, which corresponds to when the
sun’s intensity on the solar cell is the highest.
6. Conclusion
A simple and efficient solar water purification system was
successfully developed in this research. Experiments conducted
with this system demonstrate a low cost option for obtaining clean
potable water during emergencies. Solar system application
provides a good alternative for the system to be used during times
when electricity is unavailable. The compact size of the system
makes it easy to deploy and install in places that have space
constraint. This system shows a good platform for further research
and optimization of portable solar water purification systems.
Acknowledment
The work reported in this paper is partly supported by the
University Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's Short Term Research Grant
(Ref: UniKL/CoRI/STR15109) and University Putra Malaysia’s
Research University Grant Schemes (Ref: 05-01-12-1626RU and
05-02-12-2015RU).
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