Water desalination system using parabolic trough with varying glass thickness

Abstract

Three quarters of the earth’s surface is covered with water[1]. Based on a survey, with the world’s population growing every year, the supply of usable water is not keeping enough with the required amount of water needed for survival. Nowadays, clean water has become a business which produces constraints when it comes to accessibility. Here in the Philippines, there are various diseases every year which relates to unsafe drinking water which may sometimes lead to death. The researchers want to know the effectivity of the assessed solar desalination system, how much desalinated water could this system provide and how long does it take for this amount to be produced in a given day. This study uses a parabolic trough which is the main means of harnessing solar energy and transferring this energy to the saltwater container which will heat up the pre-specified amount of saline water. The vapor will evaporate and the condensate will be trapped in the glass lid and routed to a desalinated water container. An evaluation is made to know the effective glass thickness for the device, the 3mm, 6mm and 10 mm thickness has been assessed and after the testing phase, it has been found out that the 10 mm glass thickness produced the optimum results. It is able to produce a liter of desalinated water out of 5000 mL of saline water. It is then observed that the 10mm glass thickness has the highest volume conversion efficiency of 23.10 %, followed by the 6mm glass thickness of 21.90% and the 3mm glass thickness of 17.30%.