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New Water Desalination Device Runs on Solar Energy and is 400% More Efficient:
An international team of researchers including engineers from Ural Federal University (UrFU) developed a new desalination technology with high-efficiency thanks to a rotating cylinder, a press release reveals.
[...] The method utilizes a cylinder that is slowly rotated by a solar-powered DC motor. The rotating hollow cylinder is housed inside a rectangular basin that acts as a solar distiller. This cylinder accelerates water evaporation in the vessel by forming a thin film of water on its outer and inner surface. The film of water is constantly renewed with each turn of the cylinder, while the water below the cylinder is heated using a solar collector.
The team tested a prototype on a rooftop in the Russian city of Ekaterinburg for several months in 2019. They found that at 0.5 rpm, the machine would allow the evaporation of a thin film of water from the surface of the cylinder.
"The performance improvement factor of the created solar distiller, compared to traditional devices, was at least 280% in the relatively hot months (June, July, and August) and at least 300% and 400% in the cooler months (September and October), at the same time, the cumulative water distillation capacity reached 12.5 l/m2 per day in summer and 3.5 l/m2 per day in winter," said Alharbawi Naseer Tawfik Alwan, a research engineer at UrFU.
Journal Reference:
Naseer T. Alwan, S. E. Shcheklein, Obed M. Ali. Evaluation of distilled water quality and production costs from a modified solar still integrated with an outdoor solar water heater [open], Case Studies in Thermal Engineering (DOI: 10.1016/j.csite.2021.101216)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday August 03 2021, @10:44PM (4 children)
You imagine that the reverse osmosis keep working and working by magic without any maintenance?
RTFA and you'll see the thing that does the job is a cylinder made of a blackened mild steel sheet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 03 2021, @11:25PM (3 children)
Yes, the type of maintenance is important. Blackened steel is nice, shouldn't be rusting (much), but how long does it spin before it's coated with gunk that needs cleaning and what's that process like?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 04 2021, @01:04AM (2 children)
Wash it for the most salts, use the same salt water as the input. Use vinegar for the calcium/magnesium carbonates deposits.
The problems that you listed are common for any desal method. So, everything being equal**, what exactly is your objection?
** I doubt that you are gonna clean a RO membrane as easy as a cylinder of blackened mild steel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 04 2021, @02:25AM (1 child)
Oh, RO really seems annoying to operate to me, and I'd bet the cost of disposal of the spent filter media is externalized / landfilled.
This could be the greatest desalinization method ever - but if there's a glass sheet capturing the vapor and letting the sun shine in, that's another surface to clean just like solar cells, and that cost of cleaning is rarely factored into the energy budget or cost estimates in the academic papers.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 04 2021, @02:32AM
Valid point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford