Solar water purification

I have read a number of posts about various kinds of filtering media to use to make sure that stored water is safe. Has anyone ever tried using water catchment in conjunction with some kind of solar distillation process?

Tom Connolly : There are several schemes that divert the 1st part of the collected flow of of a roof so that it flushes off the roof and the gutters and
downspouts before any water is collected, Many U.K. houses circa 1900s collected and stored that water in an Attic or upper floor space !

The combination of simply heating water up to 150dF and holding that temp while the water is exposed to uv rays from natural sunlight or a commercial
UV lights will kill almost all bacteria quickly and viruses with more time !

THis is apple cider time, I help make and quickly consume lots of Apple and apple and pear cider at this time off the year from local trees !

Because I CAN go to a cider mill where the final product is 'sanitized' by exposure to a commercial UV light, the cider I get from them for swapped apples
Keeps in the cool corner of my cellar well into the 1st of the year,

It is this experience that makes me hopeful of having a off grid solar power'd source of safe drinking water !

I am still trying to determine my ''Best practices'' scenario,

I really like entering a search term in my search engine followed by the work picture, this allows me to study a field of pictures, and then just click on the
picture to get to the article the picture was posted with ! It is like having a whole new search engine to use !

Good luck, and Good hunting, For the Good of the Craft ! Big AL

I did some searching on this...ran into some uses of fresnel lenses. They have the potential to generate a huge amount of heat, if needed, to actually distill water. With reduced heat, they could easily boil water in seconds, and with a shorter focal length could produce the 150 degrees that is required. I would not do that for every drop of water I caught, but it would be easy to do it for drinking water.

I don't have a need to purify my catchment water for drinking, but if I did I'd most likely use a solar cooker....the kind that looks like a mirror lined mini radar dish. I saw one once in use and was impressed just how quickly it brought a pot of water to a boil. It would be simple and easy to use, and quick. Easy to maintain. Once it is built, it costs nothing to operate it. No fuel to buy.

Another option would be to heat my drinking water in a pot on my wood burning stove, but the solar cooker beats that method because their is no need to get fuel to burn.

While distillation would be an option using a solar cooker, it would take a lot longer and require more apparatus. Plus the water would lose its minerals, thus taste very "flat". I've drank distilled water and I can't say that I enjoyed the taste.

Tom Connolly wrote:some kind of solar distillation process?

My municipal tap comes from local wells. There is quite a bit of dissolved solids in there, along with added chlorine, which I don't want. I run the tap water through two "Rainmaker 550" solar stills.

Solar distilled water does not have the "flat" "cardboard" taste that reverse osmosis distillation has. It is totally drinkable in it's distilled state.

Rainmaker 550

I add some trace minerals before drinking.

Trace minerals

If you are going to go this route, there are a few mistakes I made, which you should avoid.

Use only high grade poly hose for any plumbing. Do not use a garden hose, or anything that has any smell at all.

Spend some extra time to get the unit perfectly level and stable.

Run the system for a couple weeks before capturing/drinking any of the water.

Also it's worth noting that these units lifespan is not indefinite. I have already needed to repair leaks in one of the units. I would be very interested in getting a few that have some sort of more durable construction. Any suggestions?

Ed Colmar : Do you have an expansion tank that contains an air cushion in your system ? Basically water is a non compressible molecule,

it only needs to expand a little bit to cause your system to Fail at connectors and joints. A small air chamber no bigger than a 1 gal paint can

containing 80% air will certainly do for Your home use water purification ! Link below :


http://www.metrosepticandplumbing.com/marietta-water-heater-expansion-tanks.html[/img]


If that seems to complicated for you remember that your cars radiator has a hot water (and antifreeze) Expansion tank under your Cars hood !

For the Good of the Crafts ! Big AL