Solar Energy 79 (2005) 2532 www.elsevier.

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A simple high eciency solar water purication system

William S. Du *, David A. Hodgson
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80524, USA Received 6 May 2002; received in revised form 7 October 2004; accepted 19 October 2004 Available online 7 December 2004 Communicated by: Associate Editor Volker Wittwer

Abstract A new passive solar water pasteurization system based on density dierence ow principles has been designed, built and tested. The system contains no valves and regulates ow based on the density dierence between two columns of water. The new system eliminates boiling problems encountered in previous designs. Boiling is undesirable because it may contaminate treated water. The system with a total absorber area of 0.45 m2 has achieved a peak ow rate of 19.3 kg/h of treated water. Experiments with the prototype systems presented in this paper show that density driven systems are an attractive option to existing solar water pasteurization approaches. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Solar water purication; Water pasteurization; Passive water purication

1. Introduction Waterborne pathogens in developing countries cause several billion cases of disease and up to 10 million deaths each year, at least half of which are children. In the rural areas of developing countries, boiling is the means most often used for purifying water for food preparation and drinking. However, boiling is relatively expensive, consumes substantial amounts of fossil energy and the associated wood gathering contributes to depletion of forests. Among available alternatives, solar water pasteurization is one of the most promising approaches for an energy-ecient, cost-eective, robust and reliable solution to these problems (Burch and Thomas, 1998).

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 970 491 5859; fax: +1 970 491 3427. E-mail address: bill@engr.colostate.edu (W.S. Du).

There are two main types of solar water pasteurization systems: batch and continuous ow. Batch systems usually consist of a simple rellable vessel. It usually takes a full day of sun for a batch system to treat water (Andreatta et al., 1994; Ciochetti and Metcalf, 1984). In a continuous ow system water ows through a solar collector that heats the water to a desired temperature. A thermostatic valve is commonly used to control temperature and ow. Heat exchangers are often used to preheat untreated water. Fig. 1 shows the schematic of a typical continuous ow solar water pasteurization system. Several researchers have experimented with continuous ow solar water pasteurization systems. Many different methods are used to report system performance. Often the production is given in l/h-m2 or l/m2-day. Unfortunately there is no direct way to determine daily production from hourly production. Most systems have signicant thermal mass so hourly production increases throughout the day as the system warms up. A system

0038-092X/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.solener.2004.10.005

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Fig. 1. A typical ow through solar water pasteurization system. Arrows indicate direction of ow. Water is fed from a supply reservoir through a heat exchanger where it is preheated before entering the solar collector. If the water at the exit of the solar collector is warm enough the valve opens and the water ows back through the heat exchanger and into the treated water reservoir.

that has a high peak hourly production may have a low daily production because of a long warm up phase. When daily values are reported, the weather conditions are not always included. It is assumed that when daily production is given it is for a clear day, but often the date and hours of daylight are not specied. As an alternative some researchers report production per MJ or kW h of sunlight. PAX World Services produced a continuous ow system that consisted of 1518 m of coiled black tubing enclosed in a glass covered solar cooker. The unit controlled ow with an automotive thermostat set to open at 83.5 C and produced 1624 l/day (Andreatta et al., 1994). Anderson (1996) used a parabolic trough solar concentrator to pasteurize water. An automotive thermostat controlled ow. The system had an aperture area of 28 m2 and produced 2500 l/day (89.3 l/m2-day). Flat plate solar collectors were used by Jorgensen et al. (1998) to pasteurize water. An adjustable thermostat valve was used to control ow. The aect of the valve set point on the inactivation of microorganisms was studied. With a set point of 75 C the collector treated about 50 l/m2-day. A at plate solar water pasteurizer with an integral heat exchanger was designed and tested by Stevens et al. (1998). The system controlled ow with an automotive thermostat and heated water to about 75 C. After a signicant warm-up period the system was capable of treating up to 55 l/h-m2. Safe Water Systems produces a at plate solar pasteurization system. The system uses a custom designed valve to pasteurize water at a temperature of 79 C. With a heat exchanger and a collector area of 3.7 m2 the system can produce up to 95 l/h during steady state operation and up to 760 l/day [205 l/m2-day] (SWS, 2002). As an alternative to a thermostat valve, the ow through a collector can be controlled by taking advantage of the thermal expansion of water, as rst proposed

by Boettcher et al. (1983). In a density driven system water is fed to the system from a xed height. The water ows through the collector and then must pass through a riser tube that is slightly higher than the feed water reservoir. Flow will not occur unless the water in the riser tube is warm enough. The relative height of the water columns can be adjusted to achieve the desired water treatment temperature. Bansal et al. (1988) conducted experiments with density driven water treatment systems. When evacuated tube collectors were used about 10 l of water was produced per kW h of solar radiation (2.8 l/MJ). Flat plate collectors produced about 3.5 l/kW h (0.97 l/MJ). Both systems heated water to about 95 C. Cobb (1998) constructed a simple pasteurization system out of two concentric copper pipes. The temperature in the outer pipe reached 85 C. The maximum ow rate of the system was about 4.2 l/h for a collector area of 0.56 m2 (7.5 l/h-m2). This paper presents three water pasteurization systems that have been designed, built, and tested at Colorado State University. Section 2 describes experiments conducted on a system that uses a thermostatic valve to control ow. Sections 3 and 4 describe experiments conducted on two density driven systems. The system in Section 4 is the rst solar water pasteurization system that successfully incorporates ecient evacuated tube heat pipes, a high eectiveness heat exchanger, and density driven ow control. All three systems heat water to at least 80 C for at least 30 s. Though complete information is not available for all waterborne pathogens, heating water to 80 C for 30 s provides signicant protection against waterborne disease. The studies of D Aoust et al. (1988) show that the process will destroy many waterborne enteric bacteria. Heating milk or water for 16 s at 71.1 C inactivates the protozoa Cryptosporidium (Harp et al., 1996). Limited information is available about the thermal inactivation of viruses, but Parry and Mortimer (1984) showed that Hepatitis A can be inactivated by heating to 71.1 C for 30 s.

2. Thermostatic valve system The rst system built and tested contained an o-theshelf automotive thermostat to control the ow of water (Du and Hodgson, 2001). In this system water ows from an upper reservoir through a heat exchanger where it is pre-heated by the hot treated water returning from the collector. The water then ows through an evacuated tube solar collector where it reaches its maximum temperature of about 85 C. If it is warm enough, the water passes through the control valve and then ows back through the heat exchanger and into a treated water reservoir.

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The automotive thermostats used are not on/o valves. Typically they go from being fully open to fully closed over a temperature range of about 10 C. This allows the valve to regulate the ow of water for varying sunlight conditions. If the incident radiation increases, the temperature of the water increases, and causes the valve to become more open. This increases the ow rate of water through the collector. If the incident radiation deceases the temperature drops and the valve closes a little to decrease the ow rate. Though the valve is successful in controlling the temperature and ow rate of the water for several hours during a given test day, it has been found that the valve is unable to control ow throughout an entire test day. The valve has diculty controlling the system ow because the temperature of the water in the heat exchanger warms up throughout the day. Early in the day when the water in the heat exchanger is cool the collector needs to heat the water passing through it by more than 60 C. Later in the day after the heat exchanger has warmed up the collector only needs to heat the water about 10 C. For similar solar intensities the ow rate in the afternoon needs to be about six times higher than the ow rate in the early morning. The valve cannot satisfy both of these conditions. The height/pressure of the supply reservoir can be adjusted to help tune the ow of the system. If the height/ pressure of the supply reservoir is too low the ow rate in the afternoon is not high enough. With too little ow, the system over heats and periodic boiling occurs (see Fig. 2).

Boiling is undesirable for two reasons: rst, the system is not designed to retain vapor. The energy used to evaporate water is lost and this reduces the daily production of the system. Second, and most important, boiling may cause water to be pushed through the system before it has been properly heated which may lead to contamination of the treated water reservoir. If the height/pressure of the supply reservoir is raised so that the valve can regulate ow in the afternoon, the system performs poorly at startup. At the beginning of the day the valve is closed. As sunlight hits the collector the water inside the collector is heated. The water surrounding the valve is heated via conduction and convection currents by the water inside the collector. When the water surrounding the valve reaches the set-point temperature the water in the collector is at a much higher temperature. When the valve rst opens hot water from inside the collector begins to pass through the valve. This causes the valve to open even more and the ow rate increases rapidly. As cool water from the heat exchanger makes its way through the collector the temperature at the valve starts to drop. If the ow rate of the water is too high the temperature can drop too quickly for the valve to respond. Water that has not been properly heated may pass through the valve. Often, as cooler water passes through the system, the valve will completely close and the cycle will repeat several times at the beginning of the day. Several attempts were made to nd an intermediate supply reservoir height/pressure, but on all test days

Fig. 2. Periodic boiling experienced in thermostatic valve system. Even when the valve is fully open the ow rate is not high enough to avoid overheating. Boiling may cause untreated water to be pushed through the system.

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the system either allowed untreated water to ow in the morning or experienced boiling in the afternoon.

3. Simple density driven system Because of the diculties encountered with thermostatic valves, a density driven system was built and tested (Du and Hodgson, 2001). Fig. 3 shows a schematic of the system. In this system the untreated water reservoir is maintained at a height of approximately 10000 (254 cm) (The height can be adjusted by a machine screw). The water then ows through a pipe (collector tube) that is clamped to the condensers of ve heat pipe solar collectors with a total absorber area of 0.45 m2. The heated water must then ow out of a 00 pipe (riser tube) that is at a height of 1023 (260.9 cm). 4 These heights were chosen because a 20 C column of water (with a density of 998.2 kg/m3) can support a column of 80 C (971.8 kg/m3) that is 1.027 times taller. The supply water may well be cooler than 20 C, but even if the supply has the average density of 5 C water (1000 kg/m3) the treated water will not spill over until it has the average density of 78 C water (973 kg/m3). The collector tube was constructed at a 45 angle in an attempt to promote natural convection in the riser

tube. During testing it was found that there is virtually no natural convection within the riser tube. At the start of the day the water in the collector tube begins to heat, but the water in the riser tube remains cool enough so that there is no ow. Eventually the water in the collector tube begins to boil. As shown in Fig. 4, the boiling process heats the water in the riser tube and the system is able to regulate ow for the rest of the day. As with the systems that have valves, boiling is undesirable because it may allow for untreated water to be pushed through the system. Experiments were conducted with several dierent riser tube diameters and even with the entire riser tube at a 45 angle, but the boiling at startup could not be eliminated.

4. Density driven system with convection loop To eliminate boiling and allow for smooth temperature control a second density driven system has been designed, built, and tested (Du and Hodgson, 2002). This system incorporates an internal convection loop that ensures the temperature of the water in the riser tube is always close to the temperature of the water in the collector tube. The system is shown in Fig. 5. Five evacuated tube heat pipes with a total absorber area of 0.45 m2 are

Fig. 3. A simple density driven system. Arrows indicate direction of ow. (a) Water from the supply reservoir is fed through the collector tube where ve evacuated tube heat pipe solar collectors heat it. If the water in the riser tube is warm enough it will ow over the spillover. (b) A heat exchanger can be added to the system to preheat water before it enters the collector tube and increase the throughput of the system.

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Fig. 4. In the simple density driven system water in the riser tube remains cool while the water in the collector tube is heated. Eventually the water in the collector tube boils. After the boiling period the system is able to regulate the ow and temperature of the water.

Fig. 5. Schematic of density driven system with internal convection loop. Numbers indicate the location of thermocouples. Arrows indicate the direction of ow. Water ows from the supply reservoir though the shell side of the heat exchanger. As the water leaves the shell it enters the convection tube where it is mixed with water from the riser tube. The water is heated in the collector tube. If the water in the riser tube is warm enough some will ow over the spillover and into the holding tube. The water from the riser tube that does not ow into the holding tube recirculates though the convection loop. After owing through the holding tube, the water is fed though the tube side of the heat exchanger where it is used to preheat untreated water. Finally the water enters the treated water reservoir.

mechanically clamped to the collector tube. As the water in the collector tube is heated, the convection tube al-

lows for water to circulate through the riser tube. The U-tube ensures that the circulation is in the proper

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W.S. Du, D.A. Hodgson / Solar Energy 79 (2005) 2532 Table 2 Performance of system with internal convection loop as shown in Fig. 5 for 23 March 2002 (a typical mostly cloudy day) Solar time at start of hour 7 am 8 am 9 am 10 am 11 am Noon 1 pm 2 pm 3 pm Average incident Starting heat Production solar ux (W/m2) exchanger (kg) temperature (C) 64 190 468 936 903 526 537 227 140 8 10 19 49 76 65 52 49 36 0 0 2.7 13.7 12.5 2.0 3.9 0 0

direction (clockwise for Fig. 5). The circulation allows the water in the riser tube to be nearly isothermal. When the water in the convection loop has reached the proper temperature, water ows over the spillover and into the holding tube. Treated water from the holding tube ows through the heat exchanger and into the treated water reservoir. Preheated water from the heat exchanger is fed into the convection loop just above the U-tube. The riser tube and convection tube intersect at the height of the supply reservoir to ensure that there is always free circulation in the convection loop. Tests have been conducted with this system in Fort Collins, Colorado. The system has achieved a peak ow rate of 19.3 kg/h while the incident solar ux was 955 W/ m2 (All solar radiation values are measured normal to the absorber surface). Two factors aect the system ow rate: the solar ux and the temperature of the water after it is preheated by the heat exchanger. With considerable thermal mass in the heat exchanger, it can take 2 h of good sunshine conditions for the water leaving the heat exchanger to reach its steady-state temperature of 10 15 C below the pasteurization temperature. Table 1 shows production data for seven test days. Insulation was added to the system after Test Day 4. Table 2 shows hourly data for Test Day 1, a mostly cloudy day. Table 3 shows hourly data for Test Day 2, a mostly sunny day. Fig. 6 shows the solar radiation and temperature proles for Test Day 1. Test Day 1 was cloudy and the ow in the system started and stopped four times. The onset of ow, which was also measured directly, corresponds to the sharp rises in the holding tube temperature. As may be seen from the gure, the system did not experience any intermittent boiling. Also, on this particular day, it took a little over an hour of full sunshine for the heat exchanger to reach its steady-state outlet temperature. During this day the system produced 34.8 l of treated water. Fig. 7 shows the solar radiation and temperature proles for Test Day 2. Test Day 2 was sunny and ow was continuous for about 8 h. During this day the system produced 86.2 l of treated water.

Table 3 Performance of system with internal convection loop as shown in Fig. 5 for 27 March 2002 (a typical mostly sunny day) Solar time at start of hour 7 am 8 am 9 am 10 am 11 am Noon 1 pm 2 pm 3 pm 4 pm Average incident solar ux (W/m2) 310 553 745 896 1008 925 901 746 490 295 Starting heat exchanger temperature (C) 8 10 40 68 72 71 70 71 71 61 Production (kg) 0 1.2 5.7 13.1 16.9 16.7 16.1 8.3 8.2 0

5. Conclusions This paper presents three solar water pasteurization systems. The system presented in Section 4 is the rst density driven system to include evacuated tube heat pipes and a heat exchanger. The density driven system has an advantage over thermostatic valve sys-

Table 1 Performance of system with internal convection loop as shown in Fig. 5 for seven test days in Fort Collins, Colorado Date 23 27 12 14 14 15 16 March March June June September September September Total insolation (MJ/m2) 13.5 24.7 24.6 30.0 21.2 21.6 20.4 Production (kg) 37 86 88 104 104 109 102 Production (kg/m2-day) 82 191 196 231 231 242 226 Production (kg/MJ) 6.1 7.7 8.0 7.7 10.9 11.2 11.1

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Fig. 6. Performance of system with internal convection loop as shown in Fig. 5 for 22 March 2002 (a mostly cloudy day). The system produced 34.8 l of treated water during the day. The numbers in parenthesis correspond to the thermocouple locations in Fig. 5.

Fig. 7. Performance of system with internal convection loop as shown in Fig. 5 for 27 March 2002, a mostly sunny day. It took the heat exchanger about 2 h of sun to reach its steady-state operating temperature. The system produced 86.2 l on this day. The numbers in parenthesis correspond to the thermocouple locations in Fig. 5.

tems in that it does not have a valve to maintain. With no moving parts to fail the system should be very reliable. The system also has and advantage over systems that use ow-through collectors. It is often dicult to clean

the internal plumbing of ow-through solar collectors. The use of heat pipes allows for easy maintenance. The collector tube can be removed from the system for cleaning. Also, any damaged heat pipe collectors can easily be removed and replaced.

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W.S. Du, D.A. Hodgson / Solar Energy 79 (2005) 2532 Cobb, J.C., 1998. Simple self-regulating solar pasteurizer for contaminated water. In: Proceedings of the International Solar Energy Conference, 1417 June, Albuquerque, New Mexico, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New York, New York, pp. 323326. D Aoust, J.-Y., Park, C.E., Szabo, R.A., Todo, E.C.D., Emmons, D.B., McKeller, R.C., 1988. Thermal Inactivation of Camplylobacter Species, Yersinia enterocolitica, and Hemorrhagic Eschirichia coli 0157:H7 in Fluid Milk. Journal of Dairy Science 50, 32303236. Du, W.S., Hodgson, D., 2001. A passive solar water pasteurization system without valves. In: Proceedings of the 2001 Annual Conference of the American Solar Energy Society, April, Washington, DC, American Solar Energy Society, Boulder, Colorado. Du, W.S., Hodgson, D., 2002. A simple high eciency solar water purication system. In: Proceedings of the 2002 Annual Conference of the American Solar Energy Society, 1520, Reno, Nevada, American Solar Energy Society, Boulder, Colorado. Harp, J.A., Fayer, R., Pesch, B.A., Jackson, G.J., 1996. Eect of Pasteurization on Infectivity of Cryptosporidium parvum Oocycsts in Milk and Water. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 62, 27662868. Jorgensen, A.J., Nohr, K., Sorensen, H., Boisen, F., 1998. Decontamination of drinking water by direct heating in solar panels. Journal of Applied Microbiology 85, 441 447. Parry, J.V., Mortimer, P.P., 1984. Heat sensitivity of Hepatitis A virus determined by a simple tissue culture method. Journal of Medical Virology 14, 277283. Safe Water Systems, 2002. Sol*Saver Product Information Sheet, Safe Water Systems, 2800 Woodlawn Drive, Suite 265 Honolulu, HI 96822. (www.safewatersystems.com). Stevens, R.J., Johnson, R., Eckerlin, H., 1998. An investigation of a solar pasteurizer with in integral heat exchanger (SPIHX). In: Proceedings of the 1998 Annual Conference of the American Solar Energy Society, 1417 June, Albuquerque, New Mexico, American Solar Energy Society, Boulder, Colorado, pp. 383388.

The commercially available solar water pasteurization system produced by Safe Water Systems can pasteurize water at a rate of 25.7 kg/h per square meter of collector area (SWS, 2002). The system presented in Section 4 of this paper achieved a peak ow rate of 42.8 kg/ h per square meter of collector area and a sustained ow rate of 36.8 kg/h per square meter of collector area. Experiments conducted with the prototype systems presented in this paper show that density driven systems incorporating heat pipes are an attractive option to existing solar water pasteurization approaches. References
Anderson, R., 1996. Solar Water Disinfection. In: Proceedings of the 1996 Annual Conference of the American Solar Energy Society, 31 March3 April, San Antonio, TX, American Solar Energy Society, Bolder, Colorado. Andreatta, D., Yegian, D.T., Connelly, L., Metcalf, R.H., 1994. Recent advances in devices for the heat pasteurization of drinking water in the developing world. In: 29th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, 711 August, Monterey, CA, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., pp. 17411746. Bansal, N.K., Sawhney, R.L., Misra, A., Boettcher, A., 1988. Solar sterilization of water. Solar Energy 40, 3539. Boettcher, A., Heybutzki, H., Krug, W., 1983. Self-regulating solar water heaters with very short start-up phase. In: Proceedings of the Eighth Biennial Congress of the International Solar Energy Society, 1419 August, Perth, pp. 11701173. Burch, J., Thomas, K.E., 1998. An Overview of Water Disinfection in Developing Countries and the Potential for Solar Water Pasteurization. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado. Ciochetti, D., Metcalf, R.H., 1984. Pasteurization of naturally contaminated water with solar energy. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 47, 223228.