Water desalination

Several years ago, I was given a solar water distillation panel. This measures 1.1 by 1.1 metres, and at the time, although I thought it was pretty cool, did not have a use for it, and it got stored in the shed. fast forward to 2019, and I can envisage how it could play a part when camping for extended periods in remote areas. Here is a blog post, showing it assembled:

http://bkhome.org/news/201904/fcubed-solar-water-distiller.html

I have received some PDFs from Martin, the Production & Technical Manager at F-Cubed in Australia.

My panel is the C1000, and is now only manufactured for bulk orders. That means, anyone who wants to buy one right now, will have to choose either the C2000 or C3000. The former is 2 metres long, so could fit on the roof of a vehicle. A sliding tray to hold it, might have to extend out from the roof-rack somewhat.

The C2000 is a much better choice anyway, as the output is at least twice the C1000, better suited to two or more people.

Martin provided some information for the performance of the C1000 panel in Perth, Western Australia, my home. I can expect from 3.3 litres per day in winter, up to a peak of 6 litres mid-summer. But, the panel can also harvest rainfall, and for Perth that will be about 2.7 litres mid-winter, to 0.3 mid-summer.

Add the two together, and we get 6.5 litres mid-winter and 6.3 mid-summer. That is pretty good.

Another invaluable piece of information, was the required input flow rate for the C1000 panel. This is 2 litres per hour. So, it seems that a 20 litre container would do very nicely for gravity feed. I have such a container, plastic collapsible, from Bunnings.

Another important piece of information is the lifetime of the panel, 10+ years. The transparent plastic film top and bottom is very thin, and I would expect that to perish. Apparently, the panel is serviceable, so perished parts can be replaced. 

Tags: nomad