FLOATING SOLAR TENT FOR LOW COST DESALINATION
Abstract
Although desalination technologies have been
widely adopted as a means to produce
freshwater, many of them require large
installations and access to advanced
infrastructure. Here floating structure for solar
evaporation have been proposed, employing
the concept of interfacial solar heat
localization as a high-efficiency approach to
desalination. This paper presents experimental
demonstration of an evaporation structure
that can operate continuously under sunlight
to generate clean vapour while floating in a
saline body of water such as ocean. The
evaporation structure is coupled with a low-
cost polymer film condensation cover to
produce freshwater.
Introduction
Water is an increasingly scarce resource
around the world, with current projections
estimating a staggering 3.9 billion people living
in water-stressed areas increasing by 2025. A
quarter of the world’s population, 1.6 billion,
lives under economic water scarcity, and are
unable to afford commercialized desalination
technologies available in wealthier countries.
The working principle of the proposed
technology is very simple: "Inspired by plants,
which transport water from roots to leaves by
capillarity and transpiration, our floating
device is able to collect seawater using a low-
cost porous material, thus avoiding the use of
expensive and cumbersome pumps. The
collected seawater is then heated up by solar
energy, which sustains the separation of salt
from the evaporating water. This process can
be facilitated by membranes inserted between
contaminated and drinking water to avoid
their mixing, similarly to some plants able to
survive in marine environments (for example
the mangroves),".
The Problem
According to FAO estimates, by 2025 nearly 2
billion people may not have enough drinking
water to satisfy their daily needs. However,
removing salt from seawater requires 10 to
1000 times more energy than traditional
methods of freshwater supply, namely
pumping water from rivers or wells. One of the
possible solutions to this problem is
desalination, namely treating seawater to
make it drinkable.
As conventional 'active' desalination
technologies need costly mechanical or
electrical components (such as pumps and/or
control systems) and require specialized
technicians for installation and maintenance.
Our Solution
Our prototype is to desalinate seawater in a
sustainable and low-cost way, using solar
energy more efficiently.
In this model the outer shield will be made of
glass to allow the sun rays to enter the tent
model. Along with the glass shield there will be
solar panels attached to recharge the battery
fitted in bottom of the model. The inner
surface will be made up of black fabric which
will be an insulating structure that serves to
simultaneously thermally insulate the
evaporation layer and reject excess salts back
to the water below. The insulating structure is
made from alternating layers of expanded
polystyrene foam and white cellulose fabric
(Zorb). There are numbers of capillaries
hanging inside the tent with a metal frame
which are made up of the same material which
will be used in the insulating structure. These
capillaries will increase the evaporating surface
area which results in the increase of
desalination process in a small interval of time.

fig 1 diagram of floating solar desalination model
Capillaries are dipped under water so that they
can absorb maximum water to maximum
height of the capillaries. There are two tanks
attached along the edges of the glass shield so
that the droplets of fresh water can be stored.
With water tanks there are batteries attached
to the floating tent which are recharged by the
solar panels and they are attached here to
supply power to the motors. This model will be
driven by GPS technology if, it is implemented
in the sea for maintaining its position or
coordinates in the sea. There are propellers
connected with the motor which will be
programmed for position maintain to prevent
it to come along sea shores or getting lost.
Challenges
The most difficult challenge while making this
prototype is to avoiding salt accumulation in
the structure under continuous operation.
Seawater contains 3-3.5 wt% total dissolved
solids, including NaCl and CaCO3, which can
clog structures after evaporation. So the
structure needed to be thin to avoid clogging.
Here, we present an approach to address
fundamental challenge of salt rejection in
solar evaporation for desalination. We
assume a floating multi-layer solar
evaporation structure that rejects excess salts.
In particular, salt rejection experiments
revealed a strong resistance to fouling from
NaCl, the most prevalent salt in ocean water.
This work has ultimately yielded a low-cost
floating solar still, made from commercially
available materials that is capable of
producing drinkable water continuously in
saline waters, without the need for periodic
cleaning.
Material selection is important to balance
competing thermal and salt rejecting
properties needed. The expanded polystyrene
is thermally insulating, but impermeable to
water, whereas the fabric wick is permeable to
water.
Salt rejection can occur via two modes,
diffusion and advection, down the fabric wick.
The driving force results from an accumulation
of salt ions as water is evaporated. The salt
concentration at the evaporation structure
increases above the ambient ocean
concentration. For this experimental work, the
salt-rejection evaporation structure was
designed conservatively assuming only
diffusion as the main salt-rejection
mechanism, though both diffusion and
advection play a role in the salt-rejection.
Conclusion
A low-cost solar evaporation structure has
been developed, which rejects excess salt
while simultaneously maintaining heat
localization for enhanced evaporation rates.
Floating deployment of our system directly on
sea, ocean or lake surfaces helps to save
agriculturally important land and natural
ecosystems from being developed for energy
and water production, and eliminates the need
for water delivery infrastructure or manual
labour. A small individual- or family-size
floating still does not require larger community
cooperation or external control over fair
distribution of distilled water, making it a fast-
to-deploy, simple-to-use, and conflict-free
technology for disaster relief missions and
sparsely-populated areas.
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