Crafting a Desalination Water Machine - Helping Purify and Clean Water

I'm sure a lot of us remember being a little kid and being at the beach with our family and swimming around without a care in the world. While swimming, we also may have gotten a little thirsty and unbeknownst to us, took a gulp of some salty, nasty water. Before this point, the only water we had ever drank was purified and clean water, so it was a big shock to realize that not all water was like this. As we mature and grow this is common sense to us now but it still does beg the question, what can we do with all the gallons and gallons of saltwater on our shore lines?

Luckily for us, in 1964 scientist Alexander Zarchin answered this question, with his newfound idea of desalination. Desalination is the process of trying to remove the salt and other substances out of water, leaving it more prime for consumption and other uses. I only recently found out about this process while reading an article, but it amazed me how simple yet how ingenious the idea is. It was on and off in my mind for a bit until I walked into CAD class one day and for a project, decided to try to recreate one. The following is my process of how I made one (Stick to the end to find out more about just how good desalination can be for the world)!

For designing the machine, all you need is AutoDesk Inventor (Or Fusion, but I just chose to work in Inventor)

To start off with any build, you must first create a frame in order to be able to make everything on top of it. In this case that is no different. To start you're going to open up a new part file, and this will be the only file you use for the entire duration of the creation. Next you will create a sketch and draw out a large rectangle, which we will then modify to shape it towards more of a traditional Desalination Machine look. Before you can edit it though, you must determine how big you want the frame to be. For me, I intended this machine to be of industrial use, meaning it was going to be huge. If you look at the second picture attached, you will notice how even after I cut some corners off the frame measures 500+ inches by 300+ inches. You of course don't have to make the machine this large, but for the purposes of the project I did.

Following that you should create the corner trims like how I did, as it is sort of industry standard to have that look. This is simple enough to do, as on one corner you sketch out a smaller rectangle that just rests on the very edge of it. Once you play around with it enough and feel you like it, you can then mirror that rectangle vertically and horizontally from the midpoint of the whole rectangle and have it appear perfectly on the opposite corner as well. You can then just trim.

Next up are all the holes you see on the pattern. Being as the frame will be made of metal, and metal is heavy and expensive, putting this hole pattern in the frame is a great way of saving space and material. To do this, make a hole (which in my case is roughly 40x40) and then rectangular array it until it covers most of the base. Where you see prominent spots that don't have a hole, where a full one can't fit, just craft another and work around the space. You have to get creative and must be willing to play around with this, but once you have it right, you can just extrude the actual whole shape up (In my case 1 foot) and finally color it with a shiny blue metal!

In order for the machine to actually be able to do its processes however, there needs to be a center where all functions can be run and controlled. This is where the control panel comes in, designed to do exactly that, control. Making it again is quite easy, as it’s a very blocky structure.

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To make it, start by loading up a sketch on the top surface of the frame. Once you have your sketch workspace, draw two squares somewhere on the outside bar of the contraption. When you have these fully sketched out, extrude them up to create two vertical bars. After this is done, start a new sketch on the INSIDE face of either of the two bars you made and create the following:

• A skinny rectangle at the top
• A long rectangle under that skinny one
• Another skinny one under the long rectangle

If done correctly, you should have an almost sandwich like sketch, with two skinny bars sandwiching a large one. If this is true for you, go ahead and extrude each one, one by one until it perfectly reaches the other bar. With this you have three new components to your body and can color each one as needed.

While I unfortunately don't know how the circuitry within the panel works, the outside shell of it is completely done and ready to be coded/wired and worked to whatever job is needed of it!

In order for the machine to do what it is designed to do, which is clean and produce drinkable/usable water, there needs to of course be somewhere for the water to actually be holstered. That's why the next step in making this machine is to create a large Water Tank.

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This is super easy to make. First start a new sketch but this time on the bottom surface of your frame, not the same one we made the control panel on. Then find a spot you want to allocate to the tank; I decided to put it quite close to the control panel. Once you have your desired spot, sketch a circle (and its okay if it comes off of the frame of the machine by the way, that's why we are drawing it from the bottom of the machine). Because I'm making an industrial sized machine, the water tank I made rather large, about 4 feet in diameter. Once you have your circle done, extrude it up in the same direction that the panel is, so IT SHOULD look like it is attached within the machine. Play around with how high you want it to come, the taller the more water it holds. After this is done, the tank is essentially completed, but if you want to pretty it up a bit, you can either:

• Fillet the cylindrical edge of the tank
• Start a sketch on a tangent work plane of the tank, draw a closed arc and cut that shape into the frame to round it out (I chose this method)

Regardless of which method you choose to do, if at all, this is last step of making the tank!

To transfer the water throughout the whole system, there needs to be general pipes that carry it to and from place to place. These pipes aren't the ones actually doing the cleaning, rather just the transfer.

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On this step there isn't an exact system or specific set of rules you need to follow, just a general idea of how to construct it. You want to make a linear system of extruded rectangles and circles along the edge of the machine to act as the apparatus that is actually responsible for moving the water. The reason why you should do this only along the edge like how I do, and NOT in the middle, is because the middle will be used very shortly in another construction. You can take inspiration from me and do a pipeline similar to how I did, which involves a very simple bar in front of the tank and panel that stretches the length of the system, and comes out a bit at the end of both sides. You can mix and match the use of different shapes in your build (See how I used some rectangular prisms, some cylinders, etc.), but make sure the general idea is that the water can move across the machine.

***HUGE IMPORTANT PART***

You MUST have some kind of connection between the pipes and the tank somewhere here. If you don't this, then the water will just stay in the tank and NEVER get clean. This defeats the whole purpose of the machine, so make sure you don't forget (Look at the first picture for reference).

Although we just made a whole pipeline in the previous step, we are not yet done working with pipes. This time, we will instead create the main system of pipes that is used to clean the water. These pipes are going to be much larger and more prominent, as they are the main part of the machine that will be doing the desalination.

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To start, you are going to need some backing of the pipes. These will come in the form of the two walls that are sandwiching the pipes. To make these, first start off by again starting a sketch on the top surface, creating a rectangle and extruding it upwards. You will now have two walls on the edge of the machine with a whole lot of space in between them for the pipes to go.

Then, using the inside of one of the walls, sketch out 4 equal sized and equidistant circles, or really however many you see fit. Once you have them, extrude them towards the other wall until it perfectly lines up, and is completely flush with both walls. If done right, you should have a large and symmetrical system in the middle ready to desalinate any water placed in it. One last little thing is just to make sure you again have some kind of connective device between the general pipes and these ones, so that the water can actually get to where it needs.

The last step in assembling the machine is a little containment device with a special little twist. In the middle of the pipes, there isn't as much support as the ends of it, so to mitigate any chance of disaster striking, I decided to include a middle part that secure the pipes ever further. Somewhere in the middle, start a new sketch and draw/sketch two vertical rectangles much like we've been doing. On the inside, draw and extrude another rectangle and make sure it wraps around the pipes. And just like that, the little device is completed.

Just to spice up the machine however and make sure there is no confusion as to who’s creation it is, I also decided to draw and extrude my name on the very same creation. This was again extremely simple, as a new sketch and drawing was all that was needed. Instead of actually drawing out a name like I did, you could also just type it out, but I just chose not to.

With all steps done, it is time to sit back and look at the final creation. In the total culmination of the project, I feel that we have seen and created a very nice, aesthetic and useful piece of equipment here. There is so much need and opportunity for a machine with capabilities like we see here, and it is really amazing to see all the planning and ideas come together successfully here. What I created here is a very modern and true replication of the desalination machines already used and in the market today, and with ever growing divisions between groups of people, we need everything we can get. This is my contribution and attempt to help those in the water sector, and I am proud of what the finished product came out to be!

So where does this leave us? Where do we go now that we have a desalination water system? It means we can finally start helping people and making the most out of this marvel of engineering.

Simply put, desalination is purely in it's name, de-salinizing (De-salting) water. Of the nearly 71% of Earth that is made up of water, only about 3% of it is freshwater and of that, only a tiny 1.2% is actually drinkable. This means that even with a super small amount of water, a majority of humans have been able to successfully survive. Of course however, we know that not everybody is as fortunate. Of the 8 Billion+ people living on Earth, over 2 Billion don't have access to safe drinking water. While that is also in part due to contamination of drinking water rather than saltwater, what I'm saying is that if 6 Billion people can live off of the 1.2% of drinking water we have at our disposal, imagine the people we save and communities we feed if we allow that 68% of saltwater to be brought into play. The boundaries of desalination are endless, from effectively ending thirst to even allowing agriculture to continue to grow, and quite possibly limiting harsh servitude in salt mining. By investing in and continuing to become involved and educated with the art that is desalination, and its machines of course, we can help our plant tremendously and even further, help those who live within it!

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- Thank you to everyone who took the time to read and follow my Instructable here today. I dedicated a lot of time to this project and have been working on it and planning its logistics for a few weeks now. I hope I inspired you to get out there and potentially attempt to make an impact on the amazing world you live in, or even just educate you a little on the state of the world and potential directions we may be headed in. I hope you enjoyed learning and seeing my thought process and creation unfold and hope it has shined light on a topic you may not have been all too well versed in. I appreciate all the time you have given this guide :)