- The new technology can produce more water than traditional desalinators.
- The efficiency of the device increases during cooler winter months.
- Researchers are hopeful that the device will be beneficial to water-scarce regions in the Middle East and Africa.
Power Engineers at the Ural Federal University (UrFU) and Iraq have developed a new desalination technology that they say will reduce the cost of desalination and quadruple the volume of water production. The hybrid technology increases evaporation efficiency inside a solar distillery via a rotating hollow cylinder and a solar collector.
The researchers say their experimental tests, which the engineers ran in Ekaterinburg, Russia, for several months (June-October, 2019), showed high efficiency and reliability of the developed device. In addition, they note that relatively high intensity of solar radiation and low ambient air temperature contributed to the performance of water distillation.
Alharbawi Naseer Tawfik Alwan, a research engineer at UrFU and Northern Technical University (Iraq), stated: “The performance improvement factor of the created solar distiller, compared to traditional devices, was at least 280 per cent in the relatively hot months (June, July, and August) and at least 300 per cent and 400 per cent in the cooler months (September and October). At the same time, the cumulative water distillation capacity reached 12.5 l/m2 per day in summer and 3.5 l/m2 per day in winter.”
The researchers are hopeful that the new technology, which is simple and low cost, would be beneficial to arid regions with high solar potential and freshwater shortages, especially in the Middle East and Africa.