×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Peltier Water Purification Unit

Peltier Water Purification Unit

Peltier Water Purification Unit

(OP)
There are places in the world where it is hard to get clean water to drink, or clean water cannot be afforded. If it is in a humid climate there is lots of water evaporated in the air, that could be condensed and dripped down into a jar by coming into contact with a cold surface. So what if you hooked up some solar panels to Peltier effect solid state cooling panels, and angled them so that condensed water would slide down into a jar for drinking? They would be easy enough to build, presumably cheaper than drilling a well, and I would think (although I don't know for sure) that the water coming from them would be clean. Since they are all solid state, there arent any moving parts to break down, either. These would be great for charities to build and donate to various places where they are needed.

Any idea's? Do you think this is feasible?

Thanks for sharing knowledge,
CARF

RE: Peltier Water Purification Unit

CARF
I commend you for your charitable thinking. The one "fly in the ointment" that I can see is the type of cooling your talking about only cools about 15deg F below the ambient temperature (20 F at best).I doubt that in some of the regions you are talking about, that you'll ever reach the dew point. Then how do you keep from re-evaporating the small amount you may have collected. The amount of surface area would be incredible and the labor to keep it system clean would also be immense.
You might set up a small experiment at home and see just how feasible it works in your area.

Good Luck

pennpoint
    

RE: Peltier Water Purification Unit

Saturated air at 40ÂșC only contains about 51 gm/m^3 of water.  The amount of air flow required to any meaningful amount of condensation will require lots of air movement.

TTFN



RE: Peltier Water Purification Unit


Just a thought: since the main idea (as the heading implies) is water purification, wouldn't it be more direct, and probably more efficient, to use solar irradiation to evaporate water from an impure source and then collect the clean condensate exchanging heat with the impure cooler water ?

Solar irradiation may also serve to kill microorganisms present in the foul water.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources