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.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.
References
Abu El-Maaty AE, Awad MM, Sultan GI, Hamed AM (2019) Solar powered fog desalination system. Desalination 472:114130
Abu El-Maaty AE, Awad MM, Sultan GI, Hamed AM (2021) Performance study of fog desalination system coupled with evacuated tube solar collector. Desalination 504:114960
Abu El-Maaty AE, Awad MM, Sultan GI, Hamed AM (2023) Innovative approaches to solar desalination: a comprehensive review of recent research. Energies 16(9):3957
Alagumalai A, Anvari S, Awad MM (2022) Chapter 1 Water: a global grand challenge and a path forward, Solardriven water treatment. In: Mahian O, Wei J, Taylor RA, Wongwises S (eds) Solar-driven water treatment. Academic Press, pp 1-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-90991-4.00005-0
Arunkumar T, Jayaprakash R, Denkenberger D, Ahsan A, Okundamiya MS, Kumar S, Tanaka H, Aybar HŞ (2012) An experimental study on a hemispherical solar still. Desalination 286:342–348
Arunkumar T, Kabeel AE, Raj K, Denkenberger D, Sathyamurthy R, Ragupathy P, Velraj R (2018) Productivity enhancement of solar still by using porous absorber with bubble-wrap insulation. J Clean Prod 195:1149–1161
Arunkumar T, Lim HW, Lee SJ (2022) A review on efficiently integrated passive distillation systems for active solar steam evaporation. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 155:111894
Arunkumar T, Sathyamurthy R, Denkenberger D, Lee SJ (2022b) Solar distillation meets the real world: a review of solar stills purifying real wastewater and seawater. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int 29:22860–22884
Bolisetty S, Peydayesh M, Mezzenga R (2019) Sustainable technologies for water purification from heavy metals: review and analysis. Chem Soc Rev 48:463–487
Borrelle SB et al (2020) Predicted growth in plastic waste exceeds efforts to mitigate plastic pollution. Science 369:1515–1518
da Cunha TT, Silva IF, do Pim WD, Binatti I, do Nascimento GM, Stumpf HO, Santana GC, Oliveira LCA, Pereira CLM (2019) Multifunctional Nb–Cu nanostructured materials as potential adsorbents and oxidation catalysts for real wastewater decontamination. New J Chem 43:9134–9144
El-Agouz SA (2014) Experimental investigation of stepped solar still with continuous water circulation. Energy Convers Manage 86:186–193
Gao Y, Li Y, Zhang L, Huang H, Hu J, Shah SM, Su X (2012) Adsorption and removal of tetracycline antibiotics from aqueous solution by graphene oxide. J Colloid Interface Sci 368:540–546
Hanson A, Zachritz W, Stevens K, Mimbela L, Polka R, Cisneros L (2004) Distillate water quality of a single-basin solar still: laboratory and field studies. Sol Energy 76:635–645
Jamil B, Akhtar N (2017) Effect of specific height on the performance of a single slope solar still: An experimental study. Desalination 414:73–88
Ketabchi F, Gorjian S, Sabzehparvar S, Shadram Z, Ghoreishi MS, Rahimzadeh H (2019) Experimental performance evaluation of a modified solar still integrated with a cooling system and external flat-plate reflectors. Sol Energy 187:137–146
Kurniawan TA, Lo W, Chan G, Sillanpaa ME (2010) Biological processes for treatment of landfill leachate. J Environ Monit 12:2032–2047
Li T, Fang Q, Xi X, Chen Y, Liu F (2019) Ultra-robust carbon fibers for multi-media purification via solar-evaporation. J Mater Chem A 7:586–593
Maifadi S, Mhlanga SD, Nxumalo EN, Motsa MM, Kuvarega AT (2020) Analysis and pretreatment of beauty hair salon wastewater using a rapid granular multimedia filtration system. J Water Process Eng 33:101050
Mushtaq S, Yun S-J, Yang JE, Jeong S-W, Shim HE, Choi MH, Park SH, Choi YJ, Jeon J (2017) Efficient and selective removal of radioactive iodine anions using engineered nanocomposite membranes. Environ Sci Nano 4:2157–2163
Nasri B, Benatiallah A, Kalloum S, Benatiallah D (2019) Improvement of glass solar still performance using locally available materials in the southern region of Algeria. Groundw Sustain Dev 9:100258
Purwajanti S, Huang X, Liu Y, Yang Y, Noonan O, Song H, Zhang J, Zhang J, Fu J, Liang C, Yu C (2017) Mg(OH)2–MgO@reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites: the roles of composition and nanostructure in arsenite sorption. J Mater Chem A 5:24484–24492
Reddy KS, Sharon H, Krithika D, Philip L (2018) Performance, water quality and enviro-economic investigations on solar distillation treatment of reverse osmosis reject and sewage water. Sol Energy 173:160–172
Saadi Z, Rahmani A, Lachtar S, Soualmi H (2018) Performance evaluation of a new stepped solar still under the desert climatic conditions. Energy Convers Manage 171:1749–1760
Saenz de Miera B, Oliveira AS, Baeza JA, Calvo L, Rodriguez JJ, Gilarranz MA (2020) Treatment and valorisation of fruit juice wastewater by aqueous phase reforming: Effect of pH, organic load and salinity. J Clean Prod 252:119849
Sampathkumar K, Senthilkumar P (2012) Utilization of solar water heater in a single basin solar still—An experimental study. Desalination 297:8–19
Samuel Hansen R, Kalidasa Murugavel K (2017) Enhancement of integrated solar still using different new absorber configurations: An experimental approach. Desalination 422:59–67
Sharon H, Reddy KS, Krithika D, Philip L (2017) Experimental performance investigation of tilted solar still with basin and wick for distillate quality and enviro-economic aspects. Desalination 410:30–54
Tian X, Gao P, Nie Y, Yang C, Zhou Z, Li Y, Wang Y (2017) A novel singlet oxygen involved peroxymonosulfate activation mechanism for degradation of ofloxacin and phenol in water. Chem Commun (camb) 53:6589–6592
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (2017) Water quality standards handbook: Chapter 3: Water quality criteria. EPA-823-B-17-001. EPA Office of Water, Office of Science and Technology, Washington, DC
Vinoth Kumar K, Kasturi Bai R (2008) Performance study on solar still with enhanced condensation. Desalination 230:51–61
WHO (2022) Guidelines for drinking-water quality. World Health Organization
Yan Z, He J, Guo L, Li Y, Duan D, Chen Y, Li J, Yuan F, Wang J (2017) Biotemplated Mesoporous TiO2/SiO2 Composite Derived from Aquatic Plant Leaves for Efficient Dye Degradation. Catalysts 7(12):82
Zarasvand Asadi R, Suja F, Ruslan MH, NaA J (2013) The application of a solar still in domestic and industrial wastewater treatment. Sol Energy 93:63–71
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge that this research work was conducted during the outbreak of Covid-19. Unfortunately, due to the circumstances surrounding the pandemic, we were unable to fully achieve the main goal of our research. Nevertheless, we have decided to submit this paper with the available data gathered during the experiment. We extend our sincere gratitude to the School of Chemical Sciences and Technology, Yunnan University, Kunming, Republic of China for providing the necessary resources and facilities to conduct this experiment. Their support and assistance have been invaluable throughout the research process.
Funding
No funding was received for conducting this study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
AK: Conceptualization, Writing-original draft. JQW: Resources, Review and Editing. SJL: Review and Editing.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethics approval
Not applicable.
Consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent to publish
Not applicable.
Competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Additional information
Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Arunkumar, T., Wang, J. & Lee, S.J. Efficient solar desalination for clean water production from different wastewaters. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 121759–121769 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30507-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30507-7