Drinking water: autonomy for a third world country

[gentil33]

In a country of equatorial Africa, they have a lot of sun and water, but unfortunately, it is not drinkable. So I was wondering if the next installation would be interesting.

Polluted water is pumped into a river or lake, it passes through a filter and is brought to a boil in a solar collector, the steam is used to supply electricity through a turbine or a stirling engine. , then, once cooled, gives potable water.

What do you think ? ... thank you

[Christophe]

No need to pump and such a complicated system, there is 1 ultra simple process: a bottle of water so the 1/2 lengthwise would be painted black.

There are cone-shaped variants for example.

Otherwise there are also dew traps (hole in the ground with drainage).

There is no shortage of solutions, it is the will of OUR politicians to provide them.

Africa is surely the richest continent in terms of underground resources ... and the fact that Africans do not know how to exploit it by themselves even suits us well ...

[gentil33]

Ok, but the goal is still to have both potable water and electricity for a village.

The question I ask myself, is it more profitable to have two independent systems, one for drinking water, the other for electricity, or mine which does both at the same time?

[Christophe]

You will not have enough steam without a parabolic concentrator (circular or linear) and in this case the circuit must be a closed circuit ...

In short you can not use the engine fluid in open circuit otherwise it will get dirty super fast!

I may have misunderstood, if you have a diagram, we want to look.

[gentil33]

In my idea, indeed, there is a parabolic concentrator, it is obvious. Upstream there is a non-return valve through which cold water arrives. It is then vaporized in the hearth of the solar oven. The ideal is then to find a way to recover with a good yield of electricity when the vapor is transformed back into drinking water.

There is indeed a fouling problem. To solve this problem, I first thought of a system of washable filters and a regular reversal of the circuit to clean the fireplace.

[Christophe]

In this case how do you think Africans will be able to afford the concentrator?

Already that we the RICH have not installed concentrators with us ...

In Africa you have to find simplicity and ease ...

[Former Oceano]

Personally I think that a complicated system performing 2 functions would be less appropriate.

Complexity increases the risk of breakdowns.

In addition, the fact of separating the functions makes it possible to have an emergency system (such as a generator or water purifier).

So you might as well have a system producing energy and next to it a separate system producing drinking water.

[Ahmed]

I am of the opinion of ex-océano for the reason he invoked and also because the question of drinking water is central in these countries, while that of electricity is secondary.

Digging wells deep enough and coated generally makes it possible to resolve the supply of drinking water in a sustainable manner, but has the disadvantage of a high cost of construction.
The joint installation of composting of animal excrement and litter toilets for humans would be very useful to avoid pollution of groundwater.

By contrast, think that in our "civilized" countries we push the provocation (unconscious) to defecate in water. potable!