International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056

Volume: 06 Issue: 03 | Mar 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

Desalination of Sea Water using Solar Energy

Gayathri. A1, Vishnupriya. G2, Mrs. Jaanaa Rupavathy3
1,2Student, Dept. of EEE, Jeppiaar SRR Engineering College, Chennai
3Professor, Dept. of EEE, Jeppiaar SRR Engineering College, Chennai
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Abstract – Extracting fresh water from seawater requires a power and scientist predicts that fossils fuels will be
great deal of energy, both thermal and mechanical. Renewable exhausted in near future. The alternatives should not be
energy driven desalination is becoming more viable despite its harmful to the environment.
expensive infrastructure because it employs free natural
energy sources and releases no harmful effluents to the 1.1 Solar collection system
environment. Solar radiation is usually chosen over other
renewable energy sources because its thermal energy can be In the first unit, the solar energy is collected through the
directly applied to drive desalination systems without the solar panel and is given to the Buck Boost converter. By
inevitable energy loss associated with energy conversion using this converter the obtained energy is stabilised and
according to the second law of thermodynamics. Solar given to the battery.
desalination systems are classified into direct and indirect
processes depending on the energy path to fresh water. Direct 1.2 Desalination- Conventional System
solar desalination systems combine solar energy collection and
The second circuit is the Arduino interfacing unit. Here,
desalination in one process producing fresh water distillate by
three types of sensors are used
directly applying collected solar energy to seawater. Solar
distillation using a solar still is an example of direct solar 1. Temperature sensor
desalination. Indirect solar desalination systems comprise two
subsystems: a solar collection system and a desalination 2. PH sensor
system. The solar collection sub-system is used either to collect
heat using solar collectors and supply it via a heat exchanger 3. Water level sensor
to a thermal desalination process or to convert
electromagnetic solar radiation to electricity using These three sensors are interfaced with the Arduino
photovoltaic cells to power a physical desalination process. in order to control the temperature, check the water level
The desalination sub-system can be any conventional and to maintain the PH of the water. This PH sensor is used
desalination system. to determine the salinity content of the water which is to be
desalinated
Key Words: Renewable energy, distillate, heat exchanger,
electromagnetic waves, photovoltaic cells. 2. WORKING

1. INTRODUCTION Let us see about the block diagram and its

explanation here. The block diagram of our project is shown
In our country, sea water is considered to be one of the in fig. In the main block diagram, the power supply is given
plentiest water source. Once ground water is felt insufficient to the Arduino UNO. The temperature sensor, PH sensor and
for people to consume, sea water is the only alternate source. the water level sensor are connected with the Arduino. Two
Hence, desalination of sea water is the much needed. We solenoid valves, one from water inlet block and another from
believe in the process of reverse osmosis which is being water outlet block are connected and interfaced with the
carried out till date for the desalination. Arduino.

But such desalinated water is free from all essential Now the work flow diagram is completely divided
minerals. Also, if desalination process is to be carried out, it into two major sections, first section is solar collecting
requires much power by any means of energy. In today’s section. Here, the solar energy is first collected by solar
world energy is the most important especially electricity is panels and given to the filter circuit. Then, by means of
important. Renewable energy sources are expected to be the inverter circuit, solar power is obtained and provide as the
apt solution to solve the energy crisis problem. As natural input to the condensation unit. In the condensation unit, the
resources and fossils fuels are on its verge of extinction, the sea water is first filled into the boiler and the power
researchers are striving hard to find an alternative energy obtained from solar energy is given to the boiler through
sources from nature. Due to the depletion of fossil fuels and induction heating.
drastic changes in climatic conditions, the use of natural
renewable energy for production of power has become
essential. Fossils fuels are depleted for generation of electric
© 2019, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1407
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 06 Issue: 03 | Mar 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

BLOCK DIAGRAM

At the moment of giving supply, there is a slight

increase in the water temperature. This makes the water to
evaporate and the sensors acts upon the boiler which is
connected to Arduino.

The fixed parameters programmed by the Arduino

are once reached. Then the heating is stopped for certain
time. The process is repeated again and again. The steam is
3. SIMULATION
collected and water is once again purified for further
consumption. The Arduino microcontroller is an easy to use yet
powerful single board computer that has gained
considerable traction in the hobby and professional market.
The Arduino is opensource, which means hardware is
reasonably priced and development software is free. The
Arduino Uno board (Spark fun DEV-09950, $29.95), a good
choice for projects. With the Arduino board, we can write
programs and create interface circuits to read switches and
other sensors, and to control motors and lights with very
little effort.

© 2019, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1408
 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 06 Issue: 03 | Mar 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

The Duemilanove board features an Atmel

ATmega328 microcontroller operating at 5 V with 2 Kb of
RAM, 32 Kb of flash memory for storing programs and 1 Kb 4. CONCLUSION
of EEPROM for storing parameters. The clock speed is 16
MHz, which translates to about executing about 300,000 In this project, a review of the renewable energy
lines of C source code per second. The board has 14 digital desalination system is presented together by comparing the
I/O pins and 6 analog input pins. There is a USB connector existing desalination system. The selection of the
for talking to the host computer and a DC power jack for appropriate desalination technology depends on a number of
connecting an external 6-20 V power source, when running a factors. These include, plant size, feed water salinity,
program while not connected to the host computer. Headers remoteness, availability of grid electricity, technical
are provided for interfacing to the I/O pins using 22 g solid infrastructure and the type and potential of the local
wire or header connectors. renewable energy resource. Among the several possible
combinations of desalination and renewable energy
The Arduino programming language is a simplified technologies, some seem to be more promising in terms of
version of C/C++. If we know C, programming the Arduino economic and technological feasibility than others. However,
will be familiar their applicability strongly depends on the local availability
of renewable energy resources and the quality of water to be
An important feature of the Arduino is that we can desalinated. In addition to that, some combinations are
create a control program on the host PC, download it to the better suited for large size plants, whereas some others are
Arduino and it will run automatically. Remove the USB cable better suited for small scale applications. Thus we conclude
connection to the PC, and the program will still run from the that the most popular combination of technologies are usage
top each time you push the reset button. Remove the battery of thermal collectors along with evaporation and
and put the Arduino board in a closet for six months. When condensation processes.
we reconnect the battery, the last program we stored will
run. This means that we connect the board to the host PC to REFERENCES
develop and debug our program, but once that is done, no
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adapter or battery to get started.
[3] Tripathi, R., Tiwari, G.N., 2004, Performance evaluation
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© 2019, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1409