Creating our First Prototype

We first created a cardboard prototype (rectangular base, triangular sides with slope) for our Solar water distiller. We were inspired by the designs of currently used water distiller that we saw on various websites.

  

Our Solar Distiller paper prototype 

Next we tested two different versions:

Round glass bowl: We placed a low cup in a deep glass salad bowl. We then put 400 ml in the bowl. We sealed the bowl with a clear plastic shrink wrap and placed a small item on top at the center of the shrink wrap to make the center of the wrap lower than the edge. To mimic the heat of the sun, we placed the bowl under a heat lamp that emitted UV light. We hypothesized that the heat from the lamp would penetrate through the clear wrap and warm the water. The water would then start to evaporate. When it touched the shrink wrap, condensation would occur; upon touching the shrink wrap, the water droplets would flow from the edges of the bowl toward the lower center of the bowl and drop into the cup. We checked the process every 24 hours.

Results: no water accumulated in the cup after the first two days. By the third day there was less than 10ml in the cup.

A rectangular clear plastic base: Based on our initial paper prototype, we used a clear 11” x 6” plastic box (bought from The Container Store). We cut it with a slope so that one side was lower than the other. We then cut a rectangular piece and used it as a divider to form two compartments. The larger one for was for the undistilled water, while the smaller compartment to collect the distilled water. We filled the large compartment with tap water, covered the whole container with clear plastic shrink wrap, and placed it under the heat lamp.

This design ended up working. After three days we accumulated 97 ml of distilled water.

 

We cut the clear box based on the cardboard prototype 

We secured the divider with a piece of tape prior to permanent adhesion

We then used a hot glue to connect the divider

                      We tested the designs for 3 days

After three days about 93 ml of distilled water accumulated in the small compartment

Because water accumulated at the edge of the shrink wrap, we lost some water in the process.

We decided to use a permanent material top for our next design, and we needed to test which material would be the best. This will be discussed in the upcoming post.