Personal Solar
Desalination Device for Clean Drinking Water
Solar desalination for
easy water purification whether you are out camping or worried about
drinking water in the future. It is a water purifier that is safe to
you and the environment and can be used anywhere, any time.
The Product:
University of Alabama Patented Personal Solar Desalination Device.
The Problem:
How do we
extract pure drinking water from any water
source? Our goal was not so much to come up with a cutting-edge system,
but to come up with a cutting-edge system that people can afford.
The need to find inexpensive ways to treat water in drought-stricken or
war-torn areas of the world with limited access to clean water for
drinking or sanitation is growing. The EPA is interested in the panels
because of their low environmental impact and because the process can
eliminate brine pollution. Salt and minerals can crystallize in the
unit and then be removed and put to another use.
In other methods of desalination, brine water is pumped back into bays
or other bodies of water where the high saline content can be harmful
to fish.
The Solution -
A Solar Desalination Water Purifier:
Solar
energy, we realized, would be a cheap, easy way to
purify saltwater or groundwater, making it an ideal way for people in
developing countries with limited resources to get access to clean
drinkable
water. The solar desalination device is also being used by a wide
variety of those in the U.S. who
are concerned with the quality of their water such as home owners,
campers, hikers, preppers and boaters, to name a few.
The Result:
The solar
desalination panel received a lot of attention.
The University of Alabama team received $9,840 in grant money from the
United States Environmental Protection Agency and won $50,000 from
Alabama Launch Pad, a nonprofit organization that supports
entrepreneurs. That money was used for the development of the panels,
which began 3 + years ago.
The result has been a simple, yet powerful solar desalination product
that uses no electricity, can be taken anywhere and extracts pure water
from any contaminated water source. It removes radiation, fluoride,
salt, pesticides, bacteria, dirt and other contaminants from any water.
It allows people to be prepared for disasters, save hundreds on bottled
water and utility bills.
The Explanation:
What is
desalination?
It is the process of
removing salt (and sometimes other minerals) from
saltwater, seawater or polluted water from lakes, streams and wells.
Is desalinated
seawater
safe to drink?
It depends on the method
used to desalinate. All common methods produce
good water. Our method produces distilled water, which is free of most
contaminants and pollutants. We add a couple of marble chips to each
order, which provides an almost perfect mineral mix.
What is our
Developing
Nations Product?
Our product was invented
to solve water problems in Developing Nations.
It is a robust, low-maintenance method of producing potable, irrigable
water from any contaminated or saline source.
Through a Phase 1 P3
Sustainability Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, we
have created several world field test sites. In addition, we have
deeply discounted product available for deployment in Developing
Nations.
When someone purchases our product, part of the proceeds is
reinvested into our Developing Nations product. We aim to bring this
technology to places that need it most ... Bangladesh, India, Africa
and the Pacific Rim, where quality water can save hundreds of thousands
of lives that would otherwise be lost to cholera, giardia, hepatitis
and diarrhea.
What is Drip
Irrigation?
Conventional irrigation
douses the soil near a plant with water, and
much of the water dries or filters away before the plant's root system
can absorb it. The problem is that plants can only drink water fairly
slowly.
A compulsively-patient gardener could conceivably drip water
very slowly onto a plant's roots, which would decrease water loss. But
since few people are willing to do that, we use drip-irrigation systems
which patiently drip water to each plant. (The amount of water can be
adjusted at each drip head.) Much less water filters through the soil
and less water evaporates in the air.
Drip irrigation has been used successfully in desert climates to grow
food with high water efficiency. Now, with the advent of increased
demand for freshwater, irrigation efficiency will become more
important. Thus drip irrigation will gradually become as well-known as
the ubiquitous as the common irrigation sprinkler. It is likely that
future agriculture in dry climates may move completely to drip
irrigation … it's remarkably more efficient.
What is Brine
Pollution?
When the desalination
process separates salt from water, the salt needs
to be managed in some way. The typical method is to send the salt-heavy
water back into a local bay or inlet. This ‘brine ‘has a salt
concentration many times higher than seawater. When injected back into
a bay or inlet, the marine organisms usually are not able to handle the
increased salinity. Like air pollution, the brine will dissipate with
time over a large area, but considerable damage can still be done close
to the area of emission.
What is our
answer to
Brine Pollution?
Our panel can be
configured to operate in ‘zero-brine mode where solid,
crystalline salt can be removed from the system, rather than brine.
Rather than having to dispose of several tons of brine, for instance,
the operator may only have to dispose of less than a ton of sale
crystals, which can be sold or used as a co product.
Why are there
ANTI-Desalination groups?
One of the problems with
conventional desalination is that after the
salts and minerals are removed from the saltwater, a salt heavy,
concentrated brine remains. Molecular screens cannot treat this brine,
so it has to be disposed. If you're desalinating near an ocean, you can
pump the brine back in. On the surface, this seems like a harmless
solution, since the ocean is already salty, what's a little brine? But
it turns out that the salt-heavy brine takes a long time to disperse,
and it can kill organisms and harm marine environments near the pump-in
point.
If you’re desalinating inland, there is rarely a good place to get rid
of the brine that won’t damage valuable cropland and soils. Unlike
molecular screen and osmotic techniques, distillation can leave behind
solid salt crystal residue instead of brine.
So instead of having to dispose of several tons of toxic brine, you may
only have to dispose of a few hundred pounds of salt crystal. And
unlike brine, there is a market for salt crystals, like road salting
and food preservation, so they can be sold or used as a co-product.
Another problem with non-solar desalination is the large amount of
power necessary to run the system, which can lead to conventional air
pollution. Solar desalination systems like our Panel avoid these
problems, to create a nearly 100% sustainable technology.
Advantages of
Solar Desalination:
One less worry ... solar
desalination makes your own water after
disasters and social
unrest. If you have sun and undrinkable water, then our 'personal solar
desalination device' will produce clean, tasty water, up to ten times
more pure than tap water.
It connects to any 2 or 3 liter water bottle and sets up in seconds.
The personal solar desalination device produces up to 4 to 6 liters per
day in full sunlight. Choose from five
different packages.
The unit is tough and reliable. Made with UV-stabilized, reinforced
plastics to provide years of use in direct sunlight, and FDA-compliant
fittings and contact surfaces.
Multiple panels can be arrayed together to create an ‘oasis’ in a
desert or any other non water or bad water area.
Made tough in the U.S.A.
See more information on the solar desalination device by visiting eco green
energies.
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