Design, Construction and Testing of Solar Water Distillation Unit for Rural Water Purification in Nigeria
Abstract
This paper presents the design, testing and construction of solar water distillation unit for rural water purification in Nigeria. The construction is done purely with local and affordable materials, for rural dwellers of RafinTambari village of Bauchi, located at Latitude 10.4°N and longitude of 9.5°E. The design consists of twelve stills arrange in two rows of six, with an area of 2m2 for each solar still attached together. Over-head storage tank of 2000litres capacity for supplying contaminated water from the stream to the solar still, 500litre of storage tank for collecting distilled water and an output device for flushing out waste product out of the solar still. Ambient and operating conditions of the plant are assumed, the same for the twelve solar still. The overall yield at different water depth of 20, 40, 60mm were 5010ml/m2.hr, 4465ml/m2hr and 3776ml/m.2hr respectively and the efficiency of the system at different water depth of 20, 40, 60mm were 50.1%, 44.6% and 37.7% respectively. The prevailing operating conditions were: Ambient temperature; 41°C, solar radiation; 1300W/m2 and wind speed; 3.08m/s. Microbial load analysis of the water before and after distillations were carried out and the following were found: PH of water; 8.2, TDS of water; 100 and 10 mg/l and E.coli; 120 and 20cfu/100ml. The distilled water was certified safe and potable for human consumption
Keywords
Design, Construction, Testing, Water analysis, Solar distillation, And distillate yield