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| 07 Oct 2014 09:13 PM |
Many people in African countries don't have access to fresh water. But I found a simple solution.
I figured out how to make a "solar distiller" for pennies that can distill water. If you don't know what distilling is, it's when you boil water so that it evaporates, and when it evaporates, it leaves everything behind. So if you catch the steam and let it condense again into water, you'll have perfectly pure water.
It's not completely original. Thomas Kin gave me the idea. I don't know if he invented it, though, or if he got it from somewhere as well.
Here's how this "solar distiller" works.
Take a plastic bottle, like maybe one from a soda you drank. Cut it in half so there's a top half and a bottom half. Take a small cup that can fit inside of the plastic bottle. Put your dirty seawater/lakewater/etc into it. Put the little cup inside of the plastic bottle. Place the top half back on the plastic bottle and sort of "screw" it back in place so the bottle stays together.
That's the rig. Now just put it in the sun and wait.
The sunlight will cause the water to evaporate out of the cup and go to the top of the bottle, where it will condense and then drip down the side to the floor of the bottle.
After awhile, come back, and you'll have completely pure water in the bottom of the bottle.
Thomas Kin has a video of something like this on his YouTube channel (called "How to make a Plastic bottle Solar distiller") although he does it in a slightly different way that I don't really like but works fine.
This literally is just a little bit of plastic. You could manufacture something like this for pennies.
It's such a cool distiller design because it requires no power or anything.
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Dengizik
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| Joined: 28 Jun 2014 |
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| 07 Oct 2014 09:16 PM |
If it was that easy, it would have already been solved...
And no, it's not that easy. |
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Dengizik
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| Joined: 28 Jun 2014 |
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| 07 Oct 2014 09:16 PM |
| It takes forever, is inefficient, and would need to be monitored. The water would also probably become dirty again. How are you gonna distribute it to all the Africans? Not so easy. |
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| 07 Oct 2014 09:20 PM |
>"It takes forever"
Not really. With a couple of them setup, you can easily produce the amount of water you need a day to survive.
>"is inefficient"
How is it "inefficient"? You're not converting anything.
>"and would need to be monitored"
Eh... why?
>"The water would also probably become dirty again."
Why? It's a distiller. Unless you knock over the cup in the middle, you're golden.
>"How are you gonna distribute it to all the Africans? Not so easy."
That's a completely different issue than the product itself.
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Dengizik
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| Joined: 28 Jun 2014 |
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| 07 Oct 2014 09:27 PM |
Believe me, if it could be done so easily, it would already be done this way.
You took that from a grade five science textbook, I guarantee it. |
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| 07 Oct 2014 09:30 PM |
>"Believe me, if it could be done so easily, it would already be done this way."
You really don't know how the world works, do you? Not going to convince you to be rational. |
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Dengizik
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| Joined: 28 Jun 2014 |
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| 07 Oct 2014 09:34 PM |
Propose your idea and pick up your Nobel prize! Do it. I dare you.
They will laugh at your grade five science experiment that everyone already did. |
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Scootrbro
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| Joined: 12 Apr 2008 |
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| 07 Oct 2014 09:40 PM |
| or just nuke the crap out of them because their useless |
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Zech9005
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| Joined: 03 Jul 2011 |
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| 07 Oct 2014 10:01 PM |
Unfortunately you're giving the common African too much credit. A lot of Red cross workers go to these villages and set up simple piping and barrels to collect rain water. They'll leave for a while and it'll be "broken" because someone moved it from its spot and nobody could figure out how to get it working again.
So you'd have to teach a few Africans to do this.
So first you'd have to fix every school so they can teach this.
Then you'd have to be sure that these people can teach other people
And so on and so forth.
Its not a one quick fix.
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xKodiac
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| Joined: 02 Jan 2012 |
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| 08 Oct 2014 01:11 AM |
Den is right, if it was this easy and obvious, it would have been done. Why it isn't so easy, idk.
You also have the issue of terrorist/coups in Africa which could interfear with the distribution of this knowledge. Believe me, coups would interfear to maintain power in any form. |
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XC6Alt35
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| Joined: 08 Aug 2013 |
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| 08 Oct 2014 02:54 AM |
| It's not that this is a bad idea, it's just there are methods of getting much more water (such as installing underground pumps). The only thing wrong with this method is it doesn't create enough water in a space of time for one person in a day |
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bobos22
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| Joined: 07 Aug 2008 |
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| 08 Oct 2014 04:52 AM |
lol u "figured out" this
this is in basic chemistry books I learnt this when I was 12 years old
and reverse osmosis is better and more efficient |
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Dengizik
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| Joined: 28 Jun 2014 |
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| 08 Oct 2014 08:38 AM |
| See, I told you! Even Bobos learned this when he was a little dude. |
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0Z0NE
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| Joined: 25 May 2010 |
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| 08 Oct 2014 08:43 AM |
Because it's simple, it's effective.
This is a pretty realistic idea for getting water to Africans.
Not every scientific solution is a complex solution. |
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Gordielad
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| Joined: 02 Apr 2012 |
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| 08 Oct 2014 11:33 AM |
if we put 100,000m cubed of fresh water in the north atlatnic conveyor africa would become cooler and have more rains :)
all fix |
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| 08 Oct 2014 12:29 PM |
| How about you light a fire and boil it. |
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md524997
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| Joined: 20 Nov 2011 |
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| 08 Oct 2014 01:58 PM |
| You're implying the same people stupid enough to rob an Ebola quarantine zone that they've been given countless warnings to avoid would be capable of working out this stuff easily. |
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TheMyrco
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| Joined: 13 Aug 2011 |
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| 08 Oct 2014 02:55 PM |
I don't think it has been done on a large scale, has it? I have only seen a mini-solar distiller in Ultimate Survival once. You should, instead of a bottle, have a pipe running down, so you don't need to open the distillers. And another pipe to add water. Should be cleaned continously, though.
Now I only stumble upon 1 problem that needs further investigating: Will it produce enough water?
"How about you light a fire and boil it." The thing here is that you need fuel to make the fire and keep it burning. The solar distiller works on [sun] light, which is free out there. It takes a lot longer to heat up, yes, but it also costs significantly less. It's a trade off you have to make.
MYRCO - 더는 낭의 꿍에 갇혀 살시 아。- MYRCO |
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| 08 Oct 2014 03:06 PM |
| I think maybe countries could make rivers, like the Suez Cannal. Surely, this sounds stupid, and would take a long time, but yeah. |
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| 08 Oct 2014 04:40 PM |
| http://solargis.info/doc/_pics/freemaps/1000px/dni/SolarGIS-Solar-map-DNI-World-map-en.png |
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bobos22
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| Joined: 07 Aug 2008 |
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| 08 Oct 2014 04:54 PM |
lold, Suez canal isnt a river
to create river you need to have source of water |
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