The Baba Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has developed an improved solar still to handle the scarcity of potable water for drinking and cooking confronting people in remote locations like coastal areas and small islands. Seawater desalination through techniques such as RO and ED are costly propositions, difficult to scale down to individual household levels, and grid power is unreliable in many locations. Many of these locations are blessed with abundant sunshine. There is merit in low-tech solutions such as desalination in a solar still, a device that enables evaporation and subsequent condensation of water in an enclosed unit assisted by solar thermal radiation.
The highlight features of this technology include; maximum output of 5.0 litres/m2/day, it Incorporate reflectors in V-trough alignment along the North-South edges of the still which is the simplest of concentrating technologies to enhance solar intensity on collector, incorporates steps or partitions in the basin i.e (i) allowed the water to be held in the tilted position, thus maximizing the absorption of solar beam radiation by the suitably tilted absorber surface, (ii) triangular exposure area, avoiding shadow effect as generally reported in literature for stepped solar stills, (iii) reduction in the free space thereby maximizing the partial pressure of water vapour and (iv) enhanced the contact area between water and heated basin surface.
This technology is predominantly for societal application with a TRL level of 5 and is available on request.
For further details contact: Bhabha Atomic Research Centre,
Trombay, Mumbai – 400 085 India , Telephone: +91-22-25505050 / 25592000, Email: webmaster@barc.gov.in
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