First Results: Innovative Solar Disinfection Technology for Treated Wastewater that Integrates Materiality, Geometry, and Reflective Panels

Pedro Cisterna-Osorio, Sergio Quijada-Vera, Daniela Ruiz-Duran, Rodrigo Peirano-Cuevas and Pamela Ortiz-Briones
Additional contact information
Pedro Cisterna-Osorio: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Bío Bío, Concepción 378000, Chile
Sergio Quijada-Vera: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Bío Bío, Concepción 378000, Chile
Daniela Ruiz-Duran: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Bío Bío, Concepción 378000, Chile
Rodrigo Peirano-Cuevas: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Bío Bío, Concepción 378000, Chile
Pamela Ortiz-Briones: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Bío Bío, Concepción 378000, Chile

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 18, 1-15

Abstract: Climate change is having drastic consequences in Chile. The lack of water in various regions is causing environmental impacts on ecosystems, including the decrease in the productive activities of rural economies and the deterioration in the quality of life of the inhabitants that occupy the affected physical spaces. In this paper, we propose a sustainable, low-cost treatment of wastewater and its reuse as an adaptation and mitigation policy, patented in 2019, that consists of a wastewater disinfection system based on solar energy. This system can work in both continuous and discontinuous modes. The water passes through a canal of reflective material in the continuous regime, and in the batch regime, the water remains in the canal. The panels are located parallel to the lateral faces of the canal. These panels concentrate the radiation in the canal through reflection. The trapezoidal geometry of the disinfectant canal deflects the radiation and reflects in the direction of the front walls of the canal, radiating what is returned and vice versa. The fraction of the radiation reflected outside the canal reaches the reflective side panels that return the radiation to the canal. The synergy of these three considerations increases the radiation in the canal area, augmenting the elimination of the bacterial load. In the trapezoidal reflective canal without panels, only 5% of the measured radiation exceeded the atmospheric radiation, eliminating 83% of the coliforms. The incorporation of panels surpassed the atmospheric radiation over 36% of the measured radiations, and the removal of coliforms exceeded 99.7%.

Keywords: solar radiation; disinfection; wastewater (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6523/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6523/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:18:p:6523-:d:410291

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().