Investigation of water recovery from sewage using solar thermal technology

Abstract

Abstract The availability of potable water for human use, agriculture, and industrial usage is a major challenge both in undeveloped and developing countries. Water, like food and air, is considered essential for human survival, and the majority of people rely on untreated water from rivers, lakes, and groundwater reservoirs. Oceans are the only place where enormous amount of water is found and desalination of the water is needed because they consists high levels of salt. But, the increase in population, urbanization and industrialization resulted in higher release of sewage and industrial effluents into water bodies and subsequent water pollution. It results in a scarcity of pure water in many towns and villages, despite their proximity to lakes and rivers. Water scarcity is anticipated to worsen in the next years, with the majority of the world’s population experiencing it in the near future. Potable water is essential not just for survival, but also for industrial and agricultural processes. Physical, chemical, and biological processes are normally used to remove contaminants from wastewater and produce pure water. In this context, an attempt is made in this paper to use the concept of solar still for sewage treatment. The experimental setup was created to examine the performance of a solar still with an evaporator and condenser. The results revealed that combining a heater and a condenser with a pyramid solar system enhanced solar still production by 4 to 8 l/Sq.m/day when using saline water, 4 to 7 l/Sq.m/day when using sewage water, and 3 to 6 l/Sq.m/day when using effluent water.