Efficient solar desalination for clean water production from different wastewaters

Abstract

Solar energy is one of the sustainable sources for many fruitful applications. Desalination of wastewater by solar power is a priority research focus and has attracted many researchers and scientists world-wide. However, handling industrial and other wastewater is typically a challenging task for effective treatment and re-use. The presence of contaminants in the effluent is hazardous to the environment and human health. In the present work, an attempt has been made to investigate different wastewaters including (i) garbage wastewater, (ii) waste vegetable water, (iii) landfill leachate, and (iv) pharmaceutical effluent fed into a solar distiller evaporated under natural solar illumination. Herein, different waste waters' pH, chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammoniacal-nitrogen (NH3-N), arsenic (As), Barium (Ba), Cobalt (CO), Chromium (Cr), Iron (Fe), Mercury (Hg), Potassium (K), Manganese (Mn), Magnesium (Mg), Sodium (Na), Nickel (Ni), Phosphate (P), and Zinc (Zn) were investigated by the inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). The concentration of NH3-N in the garbage wastewater, vegetables wastewater, landfill leachate, and pharmaceutical effluent were 157 mg/L, 142 mg/L, 161 mg/L, and 164 mg/L, respectively. The evaporated water output of garbage, waste-vegetable water, landfill leachate, and pharmaceutical effluents are 1.7 L/m2.day, 1.8 L/m2.day, 1.9 L/m2.day, and 1.65 L/m2.day, respectively. Finally, the test result reveals that the water quality is greatly improved after consecutive evaporation process by the solar distiller. This is one way to deal with the wastewater through a sustainable process for a better future.