Impact/Purpose:

We plan to extend our research on the Solar Evaporation Array (SEA) panel, which is a self-contained desalination and water-purification apparatus powered by the sun. Our objective is to bring ready, inexpensive access to pure water. Existing water purification methods either cannot remove dissolved minerals and salts, or else are too expensive to be used for small applications. We aim to develop SEA panels as a way of making potable, irrigable water for a much lower cost per liter than existing methods. We also aim to reduce and possibly eliminate brine pollution from the desalination process.

Description:

Over the last year, we produced a hand-made SEA unit to test the feasibility of our initial research. Initial results encouraged us to produce a unit that would closely resemble a deployable, mass-produced SEA unit. This required full-sized industrial plastic molds and thermoformed plastic SEA units. After about a year of working to achieve necessary funding to acquire evaluation samples of production SEA Panels, we began in-lab and field-testing of the units. Significant further research and development is needed to increase condensation-gathering efficiency of the units and test the units in real-world applications. Specifically, we hope to gather efficiency data to determine cost-benefit of using an active barrier-cooling system on the condensation barrier. We also hope to optimize geometry of the condensation barrier to encourage water-gathering efficiency.

URLs/Downloads:

Final Progress Report

Record Details:

Record Type:PROJECT( ABSTRACT )

Start Date:08/15/2008

Completion Date:08/14/2009

Record ID: 201098

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Related Organizations:

Role :OWNER

Organization Name :UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA - TUSCALOOSA

Mailing Address :P.O. Box 870166

Citation :Tuscaloosa

State :AL

Zip Code :35487

Project Information:

Approach :

Our approach is to exploit plastics thermoforming technology, which can produce complex structures in a single pass. We plan to use plastic feedstock made from recycled drink and water bottles. We have found that we can eliminate expensive and complex flow and level controllers by taking advantage of water surface tension. In this way, the flow and level controllers are essentially thermoformed into the panels themselves. This reduces the necessary manufactured components. Allowing the salt or minerals to crystallize in the unit and then be removed as potentially valuable solid crystals eliminates brine pollution.

Cost :$9,840.00

Research Component :Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development

Approach :

Our approach is to exploit plastics thermoforming technology, which can produce complex structures in a single pass. We plan to use plastic feedstock made from recycled drink and water bottles. We have found that we can eliminate expensive and complex flow and level controllers by taking advantage of water surface tension. In this way, the flow and level controllers are essentially thermoformed into the panels themselves. This reduces the necessary manufactured components. Allowing the salt or minerals to crystallize in the unit and then be removed as potentially valuable solid crystals eliminates brine pollution.

Cost :$9,840.00

Research Component :P3 Challenge Area - Water

Approach :

Our approach is to exploit plastics thermoforming technology, which can produce complex structures in a single pass. We plan to use plastic feedstock made from recycled drink and water bottles. We have found that we can eliminate expensive and complex flow and level controllers by taking advantage of water surface tension. In this way, the flow and level controllers are essentially thermoformed into the panels themselves. This reduces the necessary manufactured components. Allowing the salt or minerals to crystallize in the unit and then be removed as potentially valuable solid crystals eliminates brine pollution.

Cost :$9,840.00

Research Component :P3 Challenge Area - Materials & Chemistry

Project IDs:

ID Code :SU833945

Project type :EPA Grant