Solar Energy Powered Water Desalination Unit using Evacuated Tube heat Pipe Collector Technology /

Abstract

At this point in time, mankind is using and abusing the water resource in a way that is completely unsustainable and unless a sustainable strategy is developed for it, consequences might be faced in form of droughts and famines which would lead to huge challenges towards the existence of mankind. To meet the ever-increasing demands of fresh drinkable water the research offers the first of its kind introduced technology which uses the basic concept of water distillation whereby the research involves the designing, construction and development of the desalination system. Having worked on the principle of water distillation i.e. evaporation followed by condensation, it takes up indirect heat from the sun which ranges in intensity from 550W/m2 to 800 W/m2 . Moreover, for the assessment of the distillation process temperature change study across the system were studied for a period of 4 weeks. The temperature of the steam is noted to be as high as 118° C whereas the input water temperature is recorded to be as low as 29° C. For the system development, heat exchanger is also constructed which decondenses the steam into water for end-user utility. This heat exchanger also feeds the manifold pipe of the evacuated tube heat pipe collector in form of a closed loop whereby temperature of feed water coming from the closed loop varied between 36° C to 45° C. Distilled water can be achieved at a temperature range of 110° C to 120° C. However, the time for water collection at the output varies with the value of solar intensity. The more the solar light intensity the better the system functioning. The equipment was tested at a solar illumination of 750 W/m2. This technology offers a new arena for research and innovation in the field of applied solar thermal technology.