This a improved version of the solar still described elsewhere
This is a device that could be made as a small unit or a much bigger one depending on the parts you can acquire.
I believe most of the parts solar cell and pumps can be obtained from various sources
The metal heat exchange units could be made of small copper tubing and wound around any handy cylinder for small units. The connections between each heater exchanger and unit could be plastic hosing.
If the unit was to be of a permanent nature the cooling section of connection hosing could be buried deeply in the ground to enhance the cooling effect.
You could also use black plastic or black metal connection hosing in the heat section above ground to add additional heat from the enviroment to the flowing fluid.
I need not describe the solar panel as there are many in production or you could build a simple unit with black metal, piping and a glass cover.
This unit has two basic cycles heating and cooling.
The Cooling Bottle Cycle.
It would help the unit to operate if kept in the shade. At the top of the bottle or can is mounted a solar driven fan which forces incoming air down. There should be enough space on top or side for adequate air to be drawn in and air slots underneath the coils to help remove the built up heat.
Underneath this, is a series of water jets forcing water pumped from a collection tank below and forced down over a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger is a coil of copper tubing carrying a fluid which could be water. Fan forced air and water is passed over the tubing and removes the heat from the tubing. Remaining cooling water is dripped into collection tank which is kept at a constant level by automatic level and then is pumped back to the top jets.
The Heating cycle is supplied by solar panels.
Distillation
The distillation unit is also made up of two parts
The top half contains an upper heat exchanger which will take heat from the water vapour and cause it to condense water droplets along side of walls and then the water drips into a collection groove and fed via gravity to a collection storage container.
The bottom half consist of a storage unit for the salty water and a heat exchanger mounted just below the top of the salty water. The salty water is kept at a constant level by a supply reservoir and an auto level feed. This bottom heat exchanger gives heat to the brine water.
Operation of the unit.
Basically there is flow of fluid from the hot and cooler sections transferring heat to and from via the heat exchanger sections.
This flow is controlled by a constant speed solar operated pump pushing fluid through the sections. Fluid is fed from the cooler section into the top heat exchanger of the distillation container where it takes heat from the water vapour and condenses water droplets on the side of the walls The Fluid slightly heated is then fed to a solar panel where it is heated further and then flows to the bottom heat exchanger to heat the salty water by releasing heat from the working fluid. The water is heated and water vapour rises to the top. The heat exchange fluid now at a lower temperature is now fed to the cooler unit where the remaining fluid heat is extracted and the cooled fluid is now fed back to the top heat exchanger of distillation unit to begin the cycle all over again.
