Development of a Mobile Water Disinfection Unit Powered by Renewable Energy

Abstract

Following such natural disasters as Hurricanes Katrina and Ike and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, supplying a reliable source of clean drinking water has apparently become essential. Providing a water supply and the associated transportation of potable water is a considerable burden on recovery efforts following a natural disaster. To reduce this burden and meet the water requirements of a community, a low-maintenance, low-cost trailer-mounted water disinfection system has been developed that has the capability to provide potable water from local surface water bodies until the infrastructure is repaired. To achieve disinfection of contaminated surface water, the system uses a series of prefilters and an ultraviolet (UV) disinfection unit. The system is powered using a hybrid photovoltaic array and wind turbine system. To increase the storage capability and decrease the maintenance required by the system, traditional, relatively high-maintenance batteries have been replaced with an ultracapacitor to store the energy generated by the renewable energy component. The prototype system was field tested for several months. Tests conducted on the system included monitoring the energy generation and consumption of system components and verification of the disinfection capability by sampling various surface water bodies. The prototype performed as desired; however, during testing the PV array provided sufficient energy and the wind turbine was deemed redundant.