The desalter uses a cylinder and a solar dish:
Ural Federal University (UrFU) power engineers have developed a replacement desalination technology. it’ll significantly reduce the value of desalination and quadruple the quantity of production. The results of the research are published within the journal Case Studies in Thermal Engineering.
Today one among the foremost popular and straightforward ways of desalination is that the distillation of the water with the assistance of solar power. UrFU scientists, alongside colleagues from Iraq, have developed a hybrid technology to extend the efficiency of evaporation inside a solar distiller by means of a rotating hollow cylinder and a solar dish.
“We created a desalination technology by employing a rotating hollow cylinder inside the solar distiller to accelerate water evaporation within the vessel by forming a skinny film of water on the outer and inner surface of the cylinder, which is consistently renewed with each turn. to extend the temperature of water under the cylinder we use a solar dish,” said the top of the department atomic power plants and renewable energy sources UrFU Sergei Shcheklein.
As a part of the experiment, the rotation speed of the cylinder inside the solar distiller was 0.5 rpm. This intensity and time are enough to evaporate a skinny film of water from the surface of the cylinder. Experimental tests were held in Ekaterinburg, Russia for several months (June-October, 2019) and showed high efficiency and reliability of the developed device. Additionally, the researchers noted that the relatively high intensity of radiation and low ambient air temperature also contributed to the performance of water distillation.
“The performance improvement factor of the created solar distiller, compared to traditional devices, was a minimum of 280% within the relatively hot months (June, July, and August) and a minimum of 300% and 400% within the cooler months (September and October). At an equivalent time, the cumulative water distillation capacity reached 12.5 l/m2 per day in summer and three .5 l/m2 per day in winter,” said Alharbawi Naseer Tawfik Alwan, a search engineer at UrFU and an employee of Northern Technical University (Iraq).
The developed desalination technology with its simple design and low cost might be of interest within the Middle East and Africa — in countries with high solar power potential and a shortage of freshwater, believe researchers.
In the future, scientists decide to improve the technology and increase the performance of the solar distiller at rock bottom possible capital and operating costs for the various climate.
Reference: “Evaluation of distilled water quality and production costs from a modified solar still integrated with an outdoor solar water heater” by Naseer T. Alwan, S. E. Shcheklein, and Obed M. Ali, 3 July 2021, Case Studies in Thermal Engineering.
