Distil your own!

[bobg]

The word ?Whiskey? is a coruption of the Gaelic for ?Water of Life?, forget the ?of life? bit, all we?re distilling here is good old H2O! The tax man might be logged on.

Further to my promise in post #36 in http://www.gscalecentral.net/tm&m=61152&high=Solar+still&mpage=2 < Link To http://www.gscalecentral.net/tm&m=61152&high=Solar+still&mpage=2 < Link To http://www.gscalecentral....olar+still&mpage=2 I have (at long last) completed a solar still, roughly as per the design on the website http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1974-09-01/How-To-Build-and-Use-A-Solar-Still < Link To http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1974-09-01/How-To-Build-and-Use-A-Solar-Still < Link To http://www.motherearthnew...Use-A-Solar-Still quoted in post #34 by Thumper, so I make no claim on originality, nor even to finding the original info.

I liked the idea because it looked to be effective, and more importantly, free to run. My contribution was to be that I would try and build it for nothing as well, and I very nearly succeeded.

It took me a couple of weeks of searching and scrounging to find what I needed, the most difficult was a piece of glass that was big enough.

Materials

Glass 17.5? x 24?
19mm Plywood 18? x 25?
Square-line plastic gutter 25? Round would do.
Plastic waste-pipe 1.5? x 25?
Plastic ?L? shaped facia cover board 8? x 70? approx.
Large handful of wood screws, various (used)
Small steel angle brackets (used)
Timber 1? x 1? x 18?
15mm copper pipe 26? x 2off
15mm end caps x 2off
Ice cream tubs 2off
Silicon sealer
Kitchen foil
P.V.A. glue

and the one point where I did get stuck??

Black hand-towel (purchased from Dunelm £1.99p), I suppose any colour would do really, but black is supposed to absorb the heat.

Most of the above I had laying around from previous projects, some I acquired from ?other? sources. I suppose in the truest meaning none of it was really free, just surplice to requirements, but the outlay for end result was just £1.99p for the towel.

Construction started by cutting the frame pieces to size, length and width (of the gutter). I reduced the overall size from ?bath towel? to ?hand towel? for two reasons, the size of the free glass and I thought that I didn?t need anything ?that? big.

I then cut the back-board and after cutting the groove, gave it two or three heavy coats of 50/50 outdoor P.V.A. all over. Selecting the best side I gave it another coat of 25/75 P.V.A and applied the foil leaving a sensible over-lap all round, which I then folded and glued carefully to the edges. The tricky bit was trying to get the foil to go into the groove without it ripping.

The main box is simply screwed together onto the edges of the back-board, and I added two small angle brackets to hold the front top corners to aid construction, rather than final strength. I applied no sealant here to allow the back to be removed for maintanence/cleaning.

I cut the waste pipe in half, length-ways, to form the inner trough to catch any over-flow from the towel, and cut two end pieces to fit the gutter with cut-outs for the waste-pipe, one slightly deeper than the other.

Those end pieces were stuck into the box with silicon sealer, using the gutter to find the position. When set, the trough was added (silicon) and a hole drilled through the box at the lower end of the trough to complete the over-flow. And the gutter was glued in place (silicon again).

The one tube was drilled No 50 holes at right angles as described in the recommended ?Mother Earth News? website and sealed at both ends. A 6mm hole was then drilled in the top of this tube. This was to suit my chosen method of water supply.

15mm holes were drilled over the centre of the trough, ensuring that they were level with the top of the box (important). The towel was washed and sewn into a loop, and a second set of 15mm holes drilled at the top of the box at a sufficient distance to ensure that the towel was held as tight as possible without stressing the tubes into a bow shape.

The required angle for the unit in the UK is around 60deg so I fabricated a tapered mounting for the water supply tank (ice cream tub!), and a rear strut (1? x 1?) to suit. I chose the ice cream tub because the lid didn?t form a seal, alternatively a small breathe hole could be used.

Final assembly required the removal of the top panel; and the glass, suitably siliconed on three sides; was placed carefully in the box, the box top was then replaced. When cured it was turned over and a bead of silicon fed round the edges of the glass, taking special care with the edge that met the gutter. The top corners of the box were also sealed. And a 6mm hole drilled in the opposite end of the gutter (at the back) to the overflow. This is the collection point; I used another ice cream tub for that.

Initial trials are not exactly exciting. The first day was quite dull and it took about an hour for the glass to start dripping, regulating the water flow to the towel seems tricky, too much and the towel drips causing the overflow to loose water, too little and the reservoir seems to stand still and you wonder if it's doing anything. I used a rolled up piece of "J" cloth pushed into the feed pipe as a filter/regulator, adjusting the flow by pushing it deeper. Water does DRIP out of the collection hole, but very, very, slowly.

We await a better, sunnier day.

Any further progress I will report on here.

 

[bobg]

Moved over from Coffee Lounge 26.07.10

Nimbus,

I'm afraid the lawnmower is confined to the shed.....the grass is too wet.

From intitial results, if you are contemplating building a similar still (sounds wonderful, watch out for the Revenue ) go for the bigger size suggested on the Mother Earth website, mine does not appear to have made anything measurable today, but then I didn't empty it this morning so it's difficult to tell, and we've had no sunshine today at all.

Good luck. A dehumidifier does definately sound a surer bet.

To try and make this a little more scientific I'll measure the contents of the catchment tray (fancy name for an ice cream tub ) occasionally, and attempt to keep the feed trough (fancy name for another ice cream tub) full for the next week or two.


To date!

a reasonable 1/2 pint.

 

[bobg]

Whilst I accept what you suggest might be a possible occurrence, it is little more than that, a maybe. If it were seriously the case, every aquarium would be even more at risk, as there is also spray involved where aeration bubbles break the surface. Here the tap water used is still dosed with chlorine so will keep most organisms largely at bay. Again with aquaria, algae grows on the glass and I expect that the same will occur here and it will need to be regularly cleaned off to keep the efficiency (???) up.

In the end of the day it's a bit of fun that might be also useful to some. Common sense should always apply!

 

[bobg]

It might be interesting to measure the temp range inside, I would expect it in direct sunlight to get very high, probably over 100 deg.

If you read the Mother Earth site it says these type of things were used succesfully for long periods in the high Andes.

 

[bobg]

This morning the weather was dull and cloudy with rain over lunch time, and production was very minimal, apparently no more than a few drips/cc. Late this afternoon we had the first sun for some days and the still speeded up considerably and I then discovered that there is a leak at the other end so some production is being lost. I will apply some more silicon sealer to the faulty joint and try again.

 

[bobg]

Mixed weather today, but mostly cloudy with some rain (1-2 hours?). Ambient temp no better than 17 deg.

Yesterday's total was 1/4 pint, today's, so far, something similar.

There were two places where the the silicon was missing underneath, these I've now fixed. One of these was definately loosing production.

I have edited the above instructions to make it clear that the ply back is made removable for cleaning purposes.

 

[steveciambrone]

Have you in the UK considered making your own still?
I have thought a common pressure cooker could be attached by silicone hose to a simple copper cooling coil and you then have distilled water. The pressure cooker has a type of safety cap which loosley sits on top of the pot lid, and wiggles around under steam releasing excess pressure, if this is removed which would cause the pot to be open vented. If a hose is then attached and then connected to a cooling coil which still makes it and open vented system there would be no safety issues, with a mild flame distilled water should drip nicely out of the cooiling coil. In a short amount of time a good quanity of distilled water should be possible.

My wifes model has an addition device that looks like another safety valve.

Picture below is of a commonly available pressure cooker.

Although I have an Italian sir name, half of my blood is of Scottish/Irish Pennsylvania Hill country origin where stills were probably common.

In the USA this would not be worth the time to do it on your own.

Thanks
Steve

 

[bobg]

In the USA this would not be worth the time to do it on your own.

Thanks
Steve

It isn't here really either, it was just a bit of fun that came out of an earlier thread about water quality (and a half Scots attempt to get something for nothing). From initial results it looks as though we don't have sufficient sunshine (what's new) to make this thing anything like efficient enough. Average so far seems to be around a 1/4 pint per day, not enough, unless you want to run the thing all the time. The only other way would be using the economies of scale.......make it much bigger. As we have so much damp about a de-humidifier is MUCH easier.

Thanks for your interest Steve.

 

[bobg]

Todays weather has been heavy overcast all day with almost constant Scots mist and some rain.

Since the last time I measured, I have collected a little over 1/4 pint. At about the same time as I did the previous measure, by accident, I left an ordinary household bucket outside (normally this would probably have blown over). It too has collected an almost identical amount. So far the rain is winning for effort involved!

 

[bobg]

Unfortunately I was not in attendance yesterday, although I did top up the feeder tank before I went out. Due to a small oversight at that time the supply became dislodged and missed the collector, so all yesterday's production was lost. I have decided on a small modification so the same thing is less likely to occur again.:impatient:

 

[bobg]

Since the mishap on Saturday there was a little less than 1/4 pint in the container this morning. I checked everything and re-filled, and this evening there was as near as '&*£% it', 1/2 a pint. The difference? We had a bit of that very scarce commodity, current bun! There was no loss at all from the overflow during the day. Is that good, or bad?

The rain has provided almost another 1/4 pint (yes I left the bucket out).

A bit of back-calculation makes me believe that I tend to use around 1/2 to 3/4 of a pint each time I have a steaming session.

 

[bobg]

Yesterday's tally was a little over 1/4 pint. Possibly due to the modified collector.

I shall cease recording results on Monday next, as that will be a fortnight. I will draw any conculsions then.

[Edit] I forgot to check the bucket this morning..........1 3/8 pints. I guess we had SOME rain overnight!

 

[bobg]

Less that the usual 1/4 pint this morning, but that was undoubtely due to the awful weather yesterday, it drizzled all morning and only brightened up for about an hour late on when the angle of the sun couldn't reach the still.

All the drizzle didn't amount to anything measureable.

 

[bobg]

Standard 1/4 pint again.

 

[bobg]

Due to a minor mishap with one of the earlier modifications, virtually all of yesterday's production was lost.

 

[bobg]

Penultimate post on this.

Small blockage problem occured in the feed line yesterday and therefore production is slightly down on what would otherwise have been a better day (some sun) so we'll still call it 1/4 pint(ish).

Conclusions tomorrow.

 

[bobg]

Conclusions

From the all the data collected over the last fortnight, it would seem that a standard hand-towel sized still will provide around a quarter pint of distilled water on an average day in the UK. Output would appear to improve with better weather, and it has to be said that during the test period the weather was very mediocre, with rain on many of the days and very little direct sunshine and heavy skys.

It has to be suggested that this would probably only be of benefit during long dry spells such as earlier this year, as the rain seems generally to provide adequate amounts.

For effectiveness of collecting suitable boiler water, top of the list has to be a dehumidifier (if you have one), then rain (if you trust it), and then the still.

The effectiveness of the still could obviously be improved by an increase in size, a difference that I would expect to be proportional, i.e. twice the size, twice the output. I also think there may be scope for improving the design, perhaps using only one layer of towel, little air can pass between the layers as is.

There was an early suggestion that this would breed Legionella bacteria, that would seem to be exceedingly unlikely for several reasons.

Firstly the temperature range appears to be mostly below the 20 to 45 deg C range for it to grow, and the water is constantly changing.

Secondly there needs to be a source of nutrients for the bacterium, in the form of sludge, scale, rust, algae or other organic matter, none of these (with the possible exception of algae) are present, one of the benefits for using mostly plastic for construction.

Thirdly whilst it is not hermetically sealed, it is not directly open to the atmosphere and thereby not easily contaminated as there are only two 6 mm holes in the bottom with access to the atmosphere.

Lastly there is no form of water spray to distribute any possible bacterium in breathable form as it cannot be passed on directly. Also during my test I only used cold tap water to feed it so there would be quantities of chlorine to help reduce anything that might try to grow.

So far, there is no visible algae, but I would be surprised if there wasn't some at some stage and that will require cleaning out occasionally, which should also involve washing the towel.

I can only suggest you read the relevant section on the Government webpage if you have any doubts.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/legionnaires/whatis.htm#what

In conclusion, I have found it an interesting and satisfying experiment, but would hesitate to suggest it a complete answer to boiler water supply, except perhaps in extremes.

Many thanks everyone who has followed this thread, there would appear to be quite a few.


Suggestion to the Moderators. Delete posts #2 to #18 from this thread to save space.

 

[bobg]

I know I said yesterday's post was the last but typically we've had the first day with mostly sunshine today since before the start of the test. It's made very close to 3/4 pint today, so with good sunshine all day, and better positioning, I don't think a whole pint is impossible.

While steaming two locos on Sunday I used about 1 1/4 pints.

 

[bobg]

I have now removed the Still to storage as I have enough water saved to last for some time. There is, surprisingly, no sign of any algae on the inside of the glass or the box. I find that hard to reconcile considering the problems I've had with algae in aquaria in far better, lower light, positions that this was. Perhaps the lack of airflow through it has something to do with that, or the temperature range. The most notable change is the fading of the towel, it has gone quite grey on the front.

This last few weeks we've had higher than previous levels of sunshine and production is markedly higher by three to four times.

Maintenance, apart from adding about a pint and a half of water daily, has been just to keep the flow restrictor unclogged, don't know what clogs it, but once a week or so it seems to stop flowing, move it about and it starts again. If I'm inclined later I might make an adjustable valve to make life easier.

I still haven't gone down with Legionalla, Salmonella or any remotely similar 'ella'. I suspect that the greater danger (if there is one) is from the stored water. Just be alert!

Has anyone else built one yet?

 

[Cyclone]

I wouldnt worry about legionnaires disease from this but it is theoretically possible.
Can be nasty one of my first ever patients had it and I had to fill in loads of forms as its a notifiable disease.