US-12623163-B2 - Apparatus and method of obtaining potable water from impure water source

US12623163B2US 12623163 B2US12623163 B2US 12623163B2US-12623163-B2

Abstract

Apparatus for obtaining potable water from an impure water source comprising a container having at least a first end wall, a second end wall, a first sidewall, a second sidewall and a top wall; a volume of the impure water; a heater device for heating the volume of impure water to produce gaseous water molecules; a condensing system located inside the container for providing water condensate from the water molecules; an outlet for providing a flow of potable water from the water condensate; and a collection device for collecting the water condensate and moving the water condensate towards the outlet.

Inventors

Gregory Dennis Lesher

Assignees

Gregory Dennis Lesher

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20230309

Claims (20)

1 . Apparatus for obtaining potable water from an impure water source comprising: a container having at least a first end wall, a second end wall, a first sidewall, a second sidewall and a top wall; a volume of said impure water; a heater device for heating said volume of impure water to produce gaseous water molecules; a condensing system located inside the container for providing water condensate from said water molecules, said condensing system being located above said heater device; an outlet for providing a flow of potable water from the water condensate; a collection device for collecting the water condensate and moving the water condensate towards said outlet; a first ledge connected to said first sidewall at a non-orthogonal angle and extending downwardly from said first sidewall; and a second ledge connected to said second sidewall at a non-orthogonal angle and extending downwardly from said second sidewall; said first and second ledges being positioned between said condensing system and said collection device; said first and second ledges being configured to direct any water condensate from upper parts of said first and second sidewalls or from the periphery of said condensing system onto said collection device; said collection device being configured to angle downwardly towards a central part of said collection device, so as to direct the water condensate towards said outlet; said collection device being located between said condensing system and said volume of impure water to collect water condensate that falls from said condensing system.
2 . Apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising a reservoir for storing said volume of impure water; said first ledge being configured to extend downwardly from said first sidewall to cover said reservoir to prevent water condensate from entering said reservoir.
3 . Apparatus according to claim 2 wherein said reservoir is located underneath said condensing system.
4 . Apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said condensing system is located in an upper part of said container.
5 . Apparatus according to claim 4 wherein said condensing system includes a plurality of conduits, each conduit spaced apart from other conduits and adapted to have an outer surface area of each conduit form said condensate.
6 . Apparatus according to claim 5 wherein said plurality of conduits are tubes that are parallel and extend in one direction between said first and second end walls or between said first and second sidewalls of said container.
7 . Apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising another collection device positioned between said collection device and said volume of impure water, said another collection device adapted to collect condensate that falls from an underneath surface of said collection device.
8 . Apparatus according to claim 7 wherein said another collection device is angled downwardly towards a central part of said another collection device, so as to direct the condensate towards a further outlet.
9 . Apparatus according to claim 8 wherein said another collection device is angled downwardly from said second end wall to said first end wall towards said further outlet.
10 . Apparatus according to claim 2 wherein said reservoir is located underneath said container and is part of a base portion of the apparatus.
11 . Apparatus according to claim 2 wherein said reservoir is a series of trays, said trays being arranged in stacks and/or in rows or columns within a lower part of said container.
12 . Apparatus according to claim 2 wherein said reservoir is heated by a heat transfer fluid, which resides in a chamber in said reservoir, said heat transfer fluid being at a temperature above the boiling point of the impure water.
13 . Apparatus according to claim 2 further comprising a sensor to sense an amount of impurities, left within the volume of impure water said reservoir and to detect saturation within said container.
14 . Apparatus according to claim 5 wherein said plurality of conduits is cooled by cool air from an air conditioning source passing through an inside of each conduit.
15 . Apparatus according to claim 14 wherein said condensing system has separate materials applied thereto that are hydrophilic and hydrophobic.
16 . Apparatus for obtaining potable water from an impure water source comprising: a container having at least a first end wall, a second end wall, a first sidewall, a second sidewall and a top wall; a reservoir configured to hold a volume of said impure water; a heater device for heating said volume of impure water in said reservoir to produce gaseous water molecules; a condensing system located inside the container for providing water condensate from said water molecules, said condensing system being located above said heater device and said reservoir; an outlet for providing a flow of potable water from the water condensate; a collection device for collecting the water condensate and moving the water condensate towards said outlet; a first ledge connected to said first sidewall at a non-orthogonal angle and extending downwardly from said first sidewall; and a second ledge connected to said second sidewall at a non-orthogonal angle and extending downwardly from said second sidewall; said first ledge being configured to extend downwardly from said first sidewall to cover said reservoir to prevent water condensate from entering said reservoir; said first and second ledges being positioned between said condensing system and said collection device; said first and second ledges being configured to direct any water condensate from upper parts of said first and second sidewalls or from the periphery of said condensing system onto said collection device; said collection device being configured to angle downwardly towards a central part of said collection device, so as to direct the water condensate towards said outlet; said collection device being located between said condensing system and said volume of impure water to collect water condensate that falls from said condensing system; said top wall of said container being configured to collect rainwater, the rainwater being delivered to a water storage vessel through a separate pipe or through a downpipe used to collect condensed water from said condensing system inside said container.
17 . Apparatus for obtaining potable water from an impure water source comprising: a container having at least a first end wall, a second end wall, a first sidewall, a second sidewall and a top wall; a reservoir configured to hold a volume of said impure water; a heater device for heating said volume of impure water in said reservoir to produce gaseous water molecules; a condensing system located inside the container for providing water condensate from said water molecules, said condensing system being located above said heater device and said reservoir; an outlet for providing a flow of potable water from the water condensate; a collection device for collecting the water condensate and moving the water condensate towards said outlet; a first ledge connected to said first sidewall at a non-orthogonal angle and extending downwardly from said first sidewall; a second ledge connected to said second sidewall at a non-orthogonal angle and extending downwardly from said second sidewall; a cooking portion; and a condenser portion integrally formed with said cooking portion; said condenser portion including said container; said first ledge being configured to extend downwardly from said first sidewall to cover said reservoir to prevent water condensate from entering said reservoir; said first and second ledges being positioned between said condensing system and said collection device; said first and second ledges being configured to direct any water condensate from upper parts of said first and second sidewalls or from the periphery of said condensing system onto said collection device; said collection device being configured to angle downwardly towards a central part of said collection device, so as to direct the water condensate towards said outlet; said collection device being located between said condensing system and said volume of impure water to collect water condensate that falls from said condensing system.
18 . Apparatus according to claim 17 wherein said cooking portion derives heat from the sun to enable said cooking portion to be used for cooking.
19 . Apparatus according to claim 18 wherein said cooking portion has a base portion having a plurality of channels storing a heat transfer fluid therein that extend from said cooking portion to said condenser portion, such that when said base portion is heated, said heat transfer fluid transfers heat to said condenser portion, and when the fluid reaches a predetermined temperature evaporation of the impure water volume occurs.
20 . Apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein said collection device has a first section and a second section, said first section integrally formed with said second section, said first section and said second section being angled downwardly towards one another.

Description

BACKGROUND The process of obtaining drinkable water, which is potable water, from sources of impure water has been around for many years. This includes systems that rely on solar heating of the source of the impure water which condenses and then that condensed water is stored in a separate storage container for later use. Distillation has for many years been considered a method of making salt water drinkable by obtaining purified water in remote locations where sources of fresh water are sparse or non-existent. Solar distillation uses the sun's heat directly in a simple piece of equipment that is used to purify water. The equipment, which is commonly called a solar still, consists of a shallow receptacle which holds the impure water and also a transparent glass cover. The sun heats the impure water in the receptacle which causes evaporation. As the evaporated water or moisture rises it condenses on the glass cover and then runs down that glass cover which is usually angled into a collector. The fresh water is collected in the collector and leaves behind all of the salts, minerals, and other impurities such as microorganisms in the original shallow receptacle. Current methods of solar desalination have been too costly to use on a large-scale operation for the average person due to size limitations of current technology. Due to the design of the abovementioned solar still, the single basin of the solar still is limited in size due to the slanted glass cover or collection surface. Once the distillate has formed on the collection surface, it becomes heavy and travels down the glass or plastic surface, and if the still is a larger scale, the droplets become so heavy that gravity takes over and the droplets fall back into the source of impure water. For this reason, the size of the collection surface is limited to keeping the droplets from the collection surface from becoming too heavy before it can be collected into a trough or collector at the bottom end of the collection surface. Thus the ability to produce greater amounts of purified water is limited and can only produce enough for a person to survive or even less. Reverse osmosis (RO) is a power-hungry method of producing pure water, however it requires flushing out ceramic filters and removing highly concentrated salt water which is to generally flushed back into the ocean. RO is not an environmentally friendly solution and is an expensive process. Power plants have been created just to provide the requirements for such RO systems. Other methods used to obtain potable water from impure water use materials such as felt in order to wick the water up and is black in colour to help heat the water. This has drawbacks in that salt crystallisation forms on the material making it a difficult surface to keep clean. One particular desalination process is called multi-stage flash distillation or MSF. This is a process that relies on creating a vacuum so that the impure water boils at a lower temperature and in theory requires less energy to do this. However the whole process requires the flashing of a portion of water into steam in multiple stages of heat exchanges. This process tends to be inefficient and very costly to perform. Another system or process of distilling impure water involves a complex series of passes of salt water through multiple panels to extract about 30%-50% distilled water each time. The impure water goes through one set of panels and then onto another set of panels. Each time it goes through one set of panels there is less water to evaporate. The apparatus used in such a process is cumbersome, expensive, and difficult to set up particularly in remote areas where there is little or no water. According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided apparatus for obtaining potable water from an impure water source comprising: a container having at least a first end wall, a second end wall, a first sidewall, a second sidewall and a top wall;a volume of the impure water;a heater device for heating the volume of impure water to produce gaseous water molecules;a condensing system located inside the container for providing water condensate from the water molecules;an outlet for providing a flow of potable water from the water condensate; anda collection device for collecting the water condensate and moving the water condensate towards the outlet. The apparatus may further comprise one or more receptacles for storing the volume of impure water. The one or more receptacles are preferably located underneath the container or in a lower part of the container. Preferably the condensing system is located in an upper part of the container. The condensing system may comprise a plurality of conduits; each conduit spaced apart from other conduits and adapted to have an outer surface area of each conduit form the condensate. In an embodiment, the plurality of conduits is tubes that are parallel and extend in one direction between the first and second end wal