Abstract

Solar Water Purification with the Help of CSP Technology

Author(s): Jinesh S. Machale, Prachi D. Thakur, Piyush S. Lalwani and Gayatri M. Apte

Solar distillation mimics nature’s hydrologic water cycle by purifying water through evaporation (using solar energy) and condensation (rain). It is one of the most basic purification systems available today to obtain high quality drinking water and can remove non-volatile contamination from almost any water source. This low-tech technology should therefore be ideally suited for developing and emerging countries where sun shines in abundance.
In the past century numerous designs have been realised with footprints ranging from small area to thousands of square meters. Among the challenges that remain are: (1) its low yield, (2) obtaining local commitment to operate/maintain large scale systems properly, and (3) relatively high initial investment costs. The objective of this research has been to address challenges 1 and 3 by using solar water purification by Concentrating Solar power (CSP)3 technology to realize a small scale single slope solar still for personal use with adequate efficiency and at low production costs.