Peltier Water Purification Unit

[CARF]

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

 

[pennpoint]

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

 

[IRstuff]

Saturated air at 40ºC 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

 

[25362]

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.