A Drink from the Sun

Overview

Objectives/Goals The goal of this project is to see if light can be manipulated and utilized to make the desalination process faster and more efficient. By varying levels of light penetration to the desalination rigs this research will assess that whether a darker film will produce more fresh water than a clear one. Methods/Materials Using multiple shades of window tint ranging from 100% Visible Light Transmission to 5% VLT, several measuring devices, and 4 plastic containers, desalination rigs will be constructed and the experiment will be conducted using ocean water. The rigs were placed in the testing area for 48 hours and once the testing period was over the amount water was measured and compared. Results In Trial 1 the 100% VLT produced the greatest volume at 22.4 mL. The other darker VLTs produced less than this in percent changes ranging from 51% to 72%. In contrast, in Trial 2 the 100% VLT produced only 13.3 mL significantly less than trial 1 but still greater than the darker VLTs which ranged from 36% to 62%. Trial 3 was similar to Trial 1. Conclusions/Discussion Based on this experiment the most effective light filter for desalination is none at all. The control (100% VLT) produced more desalinated water than all the others in all three trials. The darkest light filter (5% VLT) produced the least. One potential explanation of this is that the light filters used all reflected approximately the same amount of heat and light, and this reflection prevented heat conduction into the rigs.

Competition history

• CSEF 2011 Environmental Engineering (Junior Division Only) · Entry J1012

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Environmental Engineering projects
• CSEF Environmental Engineering projects
• Every CSEF 2011 project