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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)

Original Submission