Photovoltaic-powered Water Treatment Systems for Disaster Relief and Developing Country Applications

摘要

An estimated 1 billion people are living both without access to clean drinking water or electricity. In this paper we describe a small photovoltaic-powered hybrid membrane system that is designed to address the majority of the water quality problems. An ultrafiltration (UF)membrane is used to remove bacteria and most pathogens, while a reverse osmosis (RO) or nanofiltration (NF) membrane desalinates the brackish feedwater. This paper demonstrates that such systems can be operated without relying on batteries, producing over 1m3 of clean water from very brackish groundwater.