Desalination of sea water using solar still

Abstract

The consumption of fresh water is increasing at a rapid rate, but its availability is decreasing day by day. The present work is based on developing a low-cost prototype working model called solar still which desalinates brackish water through distillation. The fabrication of solar still installed at the terrace of BILL GATES Bhavan of Aditya Engineering College, involves the components, wooden box of volume - 0.048 m3, lined by Aluminium sheet 6 gauge coated with black paint, a parabolic reflector (44” x 34”), preheating tray (1 × 1 m), connecting pipes (1”), water collector (2 lit capacity) and glass cover. Sea water samples from Port area (sample-1) and Uppada (sample-2) of Kakinada Beach were collected for purification. The raw water is sent from the inlet valve into the looped pipe placed in the pre-heating tray and then the pre-heated water is discharged into the solar still where distillation takes place, later the desalinated water was collected at the collecting point. The laboratory analyses of purified water from solar still has shown the quality suitable for consumption according to IS 10500:2012 drinking water standards with Water Quality Index for sample 1 as 14.199, and for sample 2 it was 2.188, both of them designated as excellent in terms of quality. The cost of the entire setup was 1500/- which gives 1.5–2 liters of purified water in a day.