Report of Engineers Without Borders

¶ … Earth's water is contained in the world's oceans, where the salinity and other chemical factors make the water unsuitable for drinking and in other infrastructure applications. The lack of available potable water has created a water crisis that is felt unevenly by different populations, but truly exists across the globe, with large multitudes of people in areas that lack adequate access to clean drinking water and that do not have the wealth necessary to import this vital resource. In this challenge from Engineers without Borders we are trying to solve the problem of pure drinking water shortage faced by the Kooma people, who reside in New South Wales on the eastern coast of Australia. As group we decided to design a solar still to purify the impure water and make it drinkable.

We came up with number of concepts but in the end after a thorough process of discussions and taking into account the various factors we ended up with two designs. Both of these designs were quite simple, and after continuing deliberation we chose the design that appeared to be the most efficient in its operation. The final design is made of a basin which is made from corrugated iron. This basin contains a number of tilted trays that are specifically arranged to allow for the operation of the still. This whole basin is insulated with a black coating that serves the purpose of trapping the passively collected solar heat inside the basin and thus heating the water, evaporating the water which allows it to move up through the trays were impurities are deposited. At the top of the basin a glass has been specifically and carefully positioned that serves both to keep the basin insulated and trap the heat inside the tray area, while also allowing the water vapors that reach this glass to cool and condense. The condensed water droplets are then collected in a tank that catches the runoff form the glass.

Before commencing with the final design of the solar still described above, our group did a lot of research regarding the living conditions of the kooma people and their needs regarding water sanitation for drinking, cooking, and other purposes. This research led our group to settle on the design described above primarily because this design that we came up with is easy to maintain, cheap and is easy to transport. This design is also very versatile and due to its tilted design it can mounted on top of roof of any building without creating unnecessary strain on the roof structure or placing the unit in danger of falling (which would both end the usefulness of this solar still and present a safety hazard for members of the community). We do believe our design will help the kooma people to get access to cheap and clean drinking water from within their very own communities, and in addition to providing them with the health and cost benefits of having a readily available supply of clean drinking water, and make their life better and bit more comfortable.

Team Reflection

We as a team struggled at first because of the initial delays to our progress in both the research and the design phases of this project due to various reasons. Eventually, however, everyone became engaged in the work allocated by the team leader to each individual person, and with each one of us as a team working really hard to achieve our goals we achieved much greater satisfaction from the project. The newfound fervor with which the team approached this project began with discussions on a number of various of different designs, but after a thorough and careful process of elimination on basis of viability, price, materials and a number of other factors we chose the simple design described above.