Scribd
Upload
38 views

Science Fair

Yay

Uploaded by

lefishygods
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
38 views

Science Fair

Yay

Uploaded by

lefishygods
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 16

Solar Water

Desalination
PURPOSE:
The Purpose of this project is to see how much clear water can a
homemade solar desalination system make in 3.5 days out of
seawater, and whether a black or white bottom of the desalination
system would be better.
BackGround Research:
The earth is composed of about 70% of water, but humans only have 0.5% of the water accessible to drink! Not only does
water filtering need electricity powered by fossil fuels, but only accessible to factories in high income countries, .Unsafe
water is responsible for 1.2 million deaths per year. 6% of it coming from low income countries particularly in
Sub-saharan Africa and Asia.

In 2020 it was reported One in Four people don't have access to safe drinking water. The world's progress in the last 5
years have only been a four point increase, which is too slow. So, if we wanted to reach our target, these percentages
would need to triple!

To meet the needs for drinking water, some countries, like US, Saudi Arabia, and others already started to desalinate
seawater. But these factories use fossil fuels as their main heating source. This will create more problems on the long run.

In our project, we intend to build a simple Solar Desalination System SDS. We added 1 Tbsp of salt for 240 ml of water
to make it salty. The sun should be the main heating source, but it’s winter time, so we used a heating lamp instead. We
know that black color absorbs heat, and white color reflects heat. WE will test if changing the color of the collecting cup
would make a difference.
Problem/ Question:
1. Would a Solar Desalination System (SDS) work?
2. Are there any other factors that would improve an SDS aside from heating source?
3. How would sub saharan countries benefit from SDS?
Hypothesis:
My hypothesis is that the white-bottom cup will collect more water than the black black
bottom one.
Materials:
❏ Clear plastic containers with predrilled holes
❏ Plastic cups with predrilled holes
❏ 25 ml graduated cylinder
❏ 800 ml tri pour beaker
❏ Thermometer
❏ 1 stick of modeling clay
❏ 5 ml funnels
❏ Flexible straws
❏ Steel washers
❏ Rubber Bands
❏ Black and white construction paper preferably (8 ½ inch by 11 inch)
❏ Plastic cling wrap
❏ Salt
❏ Water
❏ Heating lamp (in winter), or sunlight
Variable
Dependant: The amount of water collected

Independant: The color of paper

Constant: Heat source, Distance between the heat source and the SDS, length of the
exposure, identical funnel, containers, and cups, amount of saltwater.
Procedure:
1.Fit the stem of a funnel inside the short side of the straw.

2. Push the straw inside the container through the predrilled hole

3.White and black paper on the bottom of the cup then use wrapping paper through containers and cup

4. Use the cling wrap to cover the big container and use rubber band for cups.

5. Then use washer above the funnel to balance the water

6. 1 tsp of salt to 240ml repeat for second container

7. Use a heating lamp on top of container for one day them move away away to cool down

8. Measure salt from water after 3 days


Position of the heating lamp/ heat source
At the first trial, the containers were directly under the heating source. The heating lamp
would occupy half of the surface area of each container. We noticed that the side under it
would stay hot and water would only condense on the other side.

In the second and third trials, we put the heating lamp directly for 1 day, and then made it
indirect and within 1 hour, the water would condense a lot on the whole top, so we
collected more water.

See the attached pictures.


Data:
How much clear water was
produced

Clear water Clear water Clear water Average


1st trial 2nd trial 3rd trial

Black 13 20 16 (13+20+16)/3=
collecting 16.33 ml
cup

White 20 32 18 (20+32+18)/3=
collecting 23.33 ml
cup
Data cont.

Salt water Salt water Salt water


1st trial 2nd trial 3rd trial

Black 210 210 210


collecting
cup

White 170 210 210


collecting
cup
Recommendations and alterations
1. The heating directions should be from the bottom, or maybe if solar panels could be
used and then energy from that used to heat the water.
2. The top should be cold so that the water condenses fast.
3. A big funnel should be used to collect as much water as possible.
4. No absorbing materials should be used inside the desalination container.
5. The top should be sharply sloped downward from all sides, and something sturdier
than wrapping paper should be used, maybe glass if possible.
6. The collecting cup should be cold all the time.
7. I recommend testing if a black bottom desalination container could make the water
heat faster.
Analysis
We used a heating lamp because it’s winter. That made the process go really slow. It
took 3.5 days for 30 ml of water to evaporate. As we mentioned, this system is meant to
be solar.
In the first trial, the white cup system had a wobbly straw, so we added an extra piece
of modeling clay, this resulted in absorption of clear water. In all the other trials in
both cups, the amount of saltwater left was 210 ml out of 240 ml. So the evaporation
rate was the same. The difference was how much of that we can collect.
We noticed that the black bottom collecting cup had less water in all trials, and maybe
that’s because black color absorbs more heat, which made the water evaporate in the
collecting cup as well.
In all trials, some water was lost and not collected. As we said, maybe because it kept
evaporating in the collecting cups as well, and also because there was modeling clay inside
the desalination container to hold the straws that also absorbed some of the evaporating
water.
We collected 23.33 ml of clear water in the white cup, and 16.33 ml in the black cup.
23.33-16.33=7
7/23.33=30% increase when we used white bottom cup

We think that if the top surface was cold, and the funnel was bigger that might also collect
more water. Because the water condense more on cold surfaces, and when it drops all
would go inside the funnel if it was bigger.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the solar powered desalination system did work but will need more
alterations to be more efficient. The white cup collected more water, thus, our hypothesis
was correct.

You might also like