Self-powered Portable Unit for Drinking Water Production

Abstract

The paper describes a new system to supply drinking water for human beverage requirements in natural disasters like earthquakes, volcano eruptions, flooding, hurricanes or typhoons. The system use solar energy to supply power to the drinking water production unit that operates using evaporation to obtain drinking water from dirty or polluted waters. The unit operates at low temperature thanks to the created vacuum, which reduces the evaporation point of water down to 35°C or less. The vacuum is created using a Ventury pipe that is connected to the evaporation/condensation chamber where drinking water is produced. Dirty or polluted water are also used to create a circulating flow that generates the necessary pressure drop through the Ventury pipe. The fluid is propelled by an electric pump powered by a photovoltaic panel. Since the power requirements of the pump are very low, the size and power of the PV panel are also small. A prototype has been designed and built at laboratory scale allowing a drinking water production of 1.3 l/day, enough to cover basic survival needs for a single person. The entire system is of small size and can be carried in a portable backpack, what makes it very useful to help emergency teams to reach places only accessible on foot. The drinking water production pack is also cheap as the elements included in the layout are easy to get. The kit is supplied with all elements fell apart to save space but the assembly of the different parts does not require specialized knowledge of engineering and can be done with elementary tools, which can be included in the kit. The system has been designed to operate at rather any location because of its capacity of geometry adaptation.