TerraLiner:12 m Globally Mobile Beach House/Class-A Crossover w 6x6 Hybrid Drivetrain

[dwh]

<at this point, dwh scratches his chin and thinks to himself>

"I wonder if Bliss is taking the condensed water from the a/c unit and dumping it into the grey tank to be recycled. Every little bit helps...and hell...it's a freebie."

 

[egn]

I think power consumption is a bit of a red herring here.

The AWG doesn't have to run all the time - it only needs to run enough to top off the system. (The RO doesn't run all the time either.)

Biotect assumes a daily usage of about 100 l water, so you have to calculate the daily energy use accordingly.

(Also, by doing it that way, the water pickup in the grey tank can be above the "gunk level" so the filter system doesn't actually need to deal with the worst of the gunk - that goes away whenever the grey tank is dumped normally - which needs to be done regularly anyway to clean the slimy bottom crud out. Might need to install a baffle to act as a "gunk trap" in the bottom of the grey tank below the recycling pickup.)

Have you ever looked at a bath tube with used water?

A lot of the dirt and soap is also floating on top of the water. And after driving it will be very well mixed. Regular filters will be clogged within short time and have either to be changed or have to be cleaned by reverse flow. The regular marine RO systems are not tailored to handle real dirt water, but relatively clean sea water.

The Ecoblue seems to have low pressure RO because it doesn't have to deal with salt water.

In this way, the incoming air always contains a "full charge" of moisture, so the machine produces a LOT more water than an a/c unit. Also, because heat is extracted from the air, but that cold air is then used to extract the heat from the freon, it is much more efficient than an a/c, which only has ambient (which will obviously be already rather hot) air to blow across the hot coils to cool them - and also has to move TWICE AS MUCH AIR.

The Ecoblue unit uses 100 times more energy per l than typical pure RO. And to provide the 100 l/d in 50 % humidity it uses about 33- 60 kWh/d

Now consider this: The Midnite Solar Classic solar charge controller can also be used for wind systems. Solar does not need a "dump load", since it can simply be switched off when the batteries are full, unlike a wind generator which can overspeed if there is no load on it.

There is no way that solar on Terraliner can produce 33-60 kWh/d of energy. Solar wouldn't even be enough to supply all other electric appliances that are planned for it, especially AC.

 

[dwh]

Biotect assumes a daily usage of about 100 l water, so you have to calculate the daily energy use accordingly.

No I don't. Because he was wrong.

For a total loss system, perhaps.

But not for a recycling system.

Have you ever looked at a bath tube with used water?

Sure, I've also dumped and cleaned out the grey water tank on my truck about a million times. The dump valve is straight through, so it's easy to clean the tank. I dump it at the car wash, and stick the pressure wand in through the dump valve to clean out the gunk.

A lot of the dirt and soap is also floating on top of the water. And after driving it will be very well mixed. Regular filters will be clogged within short time and have either to be changed or have to be cleaned by reverse flow. The regular marine RO systems are not tailored to handle real dirt water, but relatively clean sea water.

No argument. Look at the Bliss setup - lots of prefiltering ahead of the RO unit.

The Ecoblue seems to have low pressure RO because it doesn't have to deal with salt water.

The only Ecoloblue I'm interested in, is the little 8 gallon per day unit.

The Ecoblue unit uses 100 times more energy per l than typical pure RO. And to provide the 100 l/d in 50 % humidity it uses about 33- 60 kWh/d

True. Good thing we don't need to replace 100l/d.

There is no way that solar on Terraliner can produce 33-60 kWh/d of energy. Solar wouldn't even be enough to supply all other electric appliances that are planned for it, especially AC.

It can power this:

http://www.h2oonthego.com.au/

100l/hr on 850w.

And if that little Gr8 Water unit does use 145w/hr, then it can power that as well. Even if it doesn't, the small Ecoloblue is do-able as well.

But my point was not to run it all from solar. My point was to use load shifting to prioritize the battery charging, then harvest whatever solar is left over and use it for recycling/water harvesting.



Not that it matters. The Terraliner has generators. And, as you point out - the solar won't be enough anyway, so the Terraliner WILL be using those generators even when not driving. In which case, 1kw to power the RO for recylcling the grey water, and running the little 8g/day AWG is a complete non-issue.

 

[egn]

But the recycling system will not provide 100 % of the fresh water back. Lets assume half of the water usage is for shower and you can recycle with a RO ratio of 4:1 about 20 %. So you will finally get only 10 % recovery.

The Bliss setup is really no valid reference, because it is nowhere specified how much of the water can be recycled. They only say that water can be recycled and rain water be cleaned. I assume that most of the water comes from cleaning rain water and not from recycling shower water.

That you are only interested in the 8 gallon unit, which delivers only half of that in normal climates, is ok. But we are not discussing your vehicle here, we are discussing Terraliner.

I have always written that RO isn't a problem regarding energy use, but AWGs are. See the 8 Gallon EcoBlue.

At realistic humidity levels they produce only half the sticker value per day.

The water produced by the Gr8 unit and the RO shown is de-mineralized and has to be treated further be good drinking water.

Using excess solar to do recycling/harvesting water is a good idea. I use the excess energy for heating water. But this works only in the sunny part of the year.

1 kW looks low, but it means 24 kWh/d and therefor running a generator for several hours per day only for generating the water. Add AC to this and the generator will run most of the day. This doesn't look like a sustainable concept for me, especially when biotect would like to be able to stay for months far from civilization and from supplies. For me a Terraliner based on wasting that much resources wouldn't be very attractive. Beside that you have to be able to put all this machines into Terraliner and to manage them all.

I think the focus should be to conserve water and energy as far as possible first, then it should be looked how the residual can be supplied in an efficient and manageable manner.

 

[aarfa]

I added another few water makers to the list at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...igid-Torsion-Free-Frame?p=1859975#post1859975

I'd like to point out some of the most interesting ones, judging just by numbers:
1. Distiller with relatively small size and superb energy efficiency
http://ntorreiro.es/en/productos/fontemar
60-80, distillation, 145 kg, 62.5 l/h, 29.6 Wh/l
TCS1, distillation, 170 kg, 83.3 l/h, 22.2 Wh/l
2. The smallest and lightest RO water makers, yet still big enough.
http://www.katadyn.com/en/katadyn-p...powersurvivors/katadyn-powersurvivor-40e12-v/
RO, 11.3 kg, 5.7 l/h, 8.42 Wh/l
http://www.katadyn.com/en/katadyn-p...powersurvivors/katadyn-powersurvivor-80e12-v/
RO, 15.4 kg, 12.9 l/h, 7.44 Wh/l
3. A small water maker with superb power efficiency
http://www.spectrawatermakers.com/documents/Ventura 150-200T Specifications.pdf
RO, 27.2 kg, 30 l/h, 4.5 Wh/l

 

[biotect]

aarfa,

You are amazing..... :wings:

I just threw the names together as quickly as I could, to underscore the point that Watermarking is now a very big business, with lots of participants selling various technologies. And that some of these like Parker/Racor/Village Marine are huge companies that sell to the US Navy at one end, and to little-guy consumers at the other.

I've got a backlog of posts that I need to finish filling in, before I post at length again. But the "Watermaker Debate" seems in full swing, and my participation does not seem necessary to keep it going at full throttle....:sombrero:

If you are inclined, and if you have the time, what would really help me is if you could track down a light-weight, marine-grade, super-rugged machine that is both an AWG as well as a Watermaker. Something like the EcoloBlue, but with a truly serious capacity to convert seawater as well. A combination AWG + Watermaker.

Even the BlissMobil "Mystery Machine", although seemingly ideal -- super-capable, super-compact, it seems to consume no more power than the BlissMobil's solar cells can produce, etc. -- even this is still only a Watermaker. (but granted, it also seems to function as a Water Recycler). But the TerraLiner really does need an AWG as well, for reasons I will try to state in full once I've finished all the posts about average annual relative humidity, across the globe. Humidity is not the same thing as precipitation, and there are lots of places that have plenty of humidity, but are still deserts with low precipitation -- for instance, Baja California. These are classified as "Coastal Fog Deserts".

Although much of the coast of North Africa is classified as semi-arid and not true desert, rainfall is only intermittent. But humidity is not: the Mediterranean coast of North Africa also has incredibly high humidity, considering just how dry the landscape looks. The northern, Mediterranean coast of Africa is not classified as "Coastal Fog Desert", but I think it could be classified as "Coastal Fog Semi-Arid". And with an AWG installed, you could drive all the way from Rabat, Morocco to Alexandria, Egypt without ever needing to fill up with water from any other source. During the whole trip it might not rain even once, and so the water collection tray on the BlissMobil's roof would be totally useless. But with an AWG installed, you would not need to fill up from a lake in Morocco or Algeria, nor a well in Tunisia, nor the ocean on the coast of Libya. For the roughly 5,000 km of distance between Morocco and Egypt, you will have high humidity the whole way, as long as you remain reasonably close to the coast (i.e. 300 - 400 km). And that high level of humidity will guarantee that an AWG operates efficiently.

But of course at other times there is neither rain not humidity, and just an oasis in the middle of the desert. In which case, one will have to bite the proverbial bullet, say a prayer to the God who protects all Colons, and break out the hose, pumping water from a desert oasis or well. Or if one has camped out on the coast of the Namib desert, one would want to run a hose down into the ocean. Although the Namib is also classified as "Coastal Fog Desert", the fog tends to stay offshore, and rarely comes inland, as per Baha California or the Atacama desert in Peru.

So by way way of thinking, the ideal unit will be a combined AWG + Watermaker. But remember egn's comment about the EcoloBlue: its RO filter was only "lightweight", and it could only work on stuff that was already as pure as rainwater. A truly robust, sea-water-capable RO Watermaker (or a distilling Watermaker) is the thing that's necessary. A Watermaker that can process stuff that has quite a bit more crap in it than rainwater. And so too, a Watermaker that will might be able to recycle the soap-filled water of a shower and a washing machine.

Have you come across anything like this, that produces roughly 100 to 200 Liters per day?

Now if the Watermaker side of things is truly robust, as per the BlissMobil's machine, then maybe it really could also function as a Water Recycler. In which case dwh would be correct, and the Watermaker would not need to produce such a large quantity of Liters per day. Instead, a much more modest 30 Liters or 8 gallons, as per most entry-level Watermakers, might suffice.

But a good place to start would be with a shortlist of all of the products currently out there, large and small, that combine AWG with Watermaking.

All best wishes,



Biotect

 

[aarfa]

Summary of claimed power consumption of incinerating toilets, electric or diesel:
Ecojohn uses 0.3 l of diesel for waste incineration which equals to 3 kWh and 0.113 l for urine (1.13 kWh).
Incinolet uses 1.5-2 kWh of electricity.
Cinderella - 0.8-1.5 kWh
Usenburn uses 0.076 l of diesel (0.75 kWh)
ADDED:
Separett Flame 8000: 0.4-1.5 kWh
ADDED:
http://www.testfakta.se/node/3244 shows results of electric toilet comparison.

To test the toilets' performance (incineration effectiveness) the laboratory performed a number of different capacity tests. Artificial faeces and artificial urine, prepared in accordance with Ecolabelling Sweden's criteria for the testing of toilet systems, were used in the tests.

The capacity test was carried out in three different stages:

In the first stage, the toilets' capacity from a cold start and with an empty and clean ash pan was tested. Three rounds were run, and the average energy consumption, time and incineration result was noted. 100 grams of faecal matter + 100 grams of urine were flushed down to incineration at each run. Overall, Cinderella and Incinolet managed incineration best, though they did leave some small char residue. Toamoa and Separett Toamoa did not manage to incinerate the faeces and left a lot of residue. Energy consumption varied greatly between the different toilets.
Incinolet had the highest average consumption with 1.65 kWh, while the toilets that had the worst incineration had the lowest (Toamoa and Separett) with 0.95 kWh. All incineration times were in the range of 70-77 minutes.

In the second stage the toilets' capacity during more regular usage, without emptying and without the toilets having totally cooled between incinerations, was tested. Seven rounds were run, and the average energy consumption, time and incineration results were noted. In a first round a test series was run with five flushes of 100 grams of faecal matter + 100 grams of urine. There followed two flushes of 200 grams faecal matter + 200 grams urine at 10 minute intervals, which simulates a toilet queue of four people. The test result showed a significantly better incineration result for all toilets. Cinderella had the best incineration (no residue left). The other three toilets left small amounts of char residue.
During more continuous operation, all toilets had approximately the same average energy consumption (1.70 - 1.88 kWh). The differences in incineration time were, however, greater. Toamoa and Incinolet had the longest incineration time with 93 minutes and Cinderella had the shortest with 77 minutes.

In the third stage a test series of three rounds with 200 grams of faecal matter + 200 grams of urine was run at ten minute intervals, which simulates a toilet queue of 6 people. Cinderella was the only toilet which managed a complete incineration (no char residue left). Toamoa, Separett and Incinolet left quite a lot of unburned residues.
Cinderella, which passed the incineration series best, also had the highest energy consumption, with 4.06 kWh compared with 2.93 for the lowest (Separett).

ADDED:
Toamoa 0.4-1.7 kWh
ADDED:
How about burning garbage too?

 

[safas]

Another calculation.

After quick search, the lightest solar panels that I found offer 36 W/kg. That's peak power. Based on this in a rather sunny area, you can expect very roughly 4 Wh/day from each Watt of peak power.
This means that the lightest panels produce 144 Wh/kg/day. And I suppose they have to be rather clean for that.

Diesel fuel offers 13.33 kWh/kg. Assume (somewhat optimistic) that you generate electricity from it with 30% efficiency. That's 4 kWh/kg. This means that a solar panel needs to work for nearly 28 days to generate as much electricity as fuel of the same weight. That's ignoring controller weight, cabling loss, etc. If you refuel more frequently than that, skipping solar altogether in favor of generator is more weight-efficient. As a side bonus, you get lower center of gravity.

Am I missing something?

ADDED:
40.68 W/kg
49 W/kg, still over 20 days.

I suppose that panels fare better when it comes to size though.

 

[dwh]

But the recycling system will not provide 100 % of the fresh water back. Lets assume half of the water usage is for shower and you can recycle with a RO ratio of 4:1 about 20 %. So you will finally get only 10 % recovery.

I don't accept that. Even if you only used filtering and not RO, you would get nearly 100% water recovery from recycling. How much water do you lose by filtering? None right?

So if you fed filtered water to the RO unit (as Bliss seeminly does), you aren't going to lose 80% of the water as waste. You'll still probably get 90% or more of the water back into the fresh water tank.

Why would the RO reject 80% of the filtered water that is being fed to it?

Now, doing RO on sea water - that's a different story.

But just recycling grey water, which is nothing but fresh water + some gunk, and filtering out the gunk before you feed the water to the RO - the RO serves as nothing but a final sanitizer/filter stage in what is actually just a filtration-based recycling.system.


(BTW bio - this is why the AWG doesn't need to do anything except make water. The recycling filtration system does the filtration and RO. The AWG doesn't need to. You keep asking for a combination "watermaker" (filtration unit) and AWG, but you don't need or want that. You just want a killer filtration/recycling system (ala Bliss), and enough AWG to replace losses. The only other thing you might need/want is UV somewhere - probably in the fresh water tank.)

The Bliss setup is really no valid reference, because it is nowhere specified how much of the water can be recycled.

They do say, on I think the water recycling page, that it can process 70l - 100l per hour.

They only say that water can be recycled and rain water be cleaned. I assume that most of the water comes from cleaning rain water and not from recycling shower water.

Why assume that? Either way, it's fresh water, that is first filtered and then sent though RO to finish off.

That you are only interested in the 8 gallon unit, which delivers only half of that in normal climates, is ok. But we are not discussing your vehicle here, we are discussing Terraliner.

The size of the vehicle is irrelevant. What is relevant is the number of people and the water lost. If each person throws 1g/day into the toilet, and breaths out 1g/day as moisture and you lose 1g/day to evaporation - then an 8 gallon AWG unit will be adequate to replace the lost water - even if it only runs at half its rated output.

(And yes, I just pulled those numbers out of my butt. Someone should figure out how much water a human body actually throws away on a daily basis.)

The water produced by the Gr8 unit and the RO shown is de-mineralized and has to be treated further be good drinking water.

True, but that won't use any energy. You can handle that by simply installing a remineralizing filter in the line between the RO output and the fresh water tank. The AWG can dump its water into the grey tank to be processed before it hits the fresh tank.

But I take a daily vitamin+mineral multi-pack. I don't much care if the water has minerals or not. For me it's not a health issue, its a taste issue. Taste is a big issue though - I'm a big ape and I drink around 1g/day of water on average.

1 kW looks low, but it means 24 kWh/d and therefor running a generator for several hours per day only for generating the water.

That 1kw was for running both the AWG -and- the recycling. The recycling won't run for likely more than an hour/day. If my guesstimate of the hourly power use of the Gr8 Water 8/day unit is correct at 145w/hour, then it will use the 3.5kwh/day specified in the slick sheet.

 

[dwh]

Time for a Cave Painting!

(click to enlarge)





So...how much water is LOST and needs to be replaced by the AWG?

Not much.

But, the RO reject into the grey will build up over time, as will the gunk (assuming most is at the bottom of the tank and pickup is above the gunk line) so the grey tank WILL need periodic dumping/cleaning.

And yes, you might use up a few of those disposable commodity items called filters.

But by sending filtered, clean, fresh water into the RO unit, it will have a very high recovery rate. A great deal of the reject water used in RO is used to hose off the membrane. You need a lot of that with seawater, but you won't need a lot of that doing RO on filtered, clean fresh water.

Which is why Bliss has such a mega-filter setup ahead of their RO unit.


Water will be lost from the system by:

Crapping in the toilet.
Pissing in the toilet.
Use a bit of water to flush the toilet.
Breathing.
Sweating.
Evaporation.
Throwing water ballons at the kids.


A small AWG -can- keep up with the losses.

 

[dwh]

Set the pump to start when the water reaches a certain level.
Keep the level low enough to leave room for incoming shower/tub/sink drain water.
Set the pump to stop when the water level is still above the water pickup, so as not to pickup the floating slime.


I don't buy a scenario of all the gunk mixed in with the water. Sure, heavy bouncing and off-roading might do that, but Terraliner won't be doing all that much of either.

With my grey tank, the gunk does accumulate in the bottom of the tank and becomes a sticky mess/mass. Every time I dump it, I also clean out that mess.

So the tank will have to be occasionally dumped (and hopefully cleaned but probably not a requirement every time) to get rid of the gunk on the bottom of the tank, and the slime floating on the top. But the only reason to do it this way, is to save on filters. It's perfectly fine to stick the pickup at the bottom of the tank and let the filters handle the gunk and slime. You'd just have to replace filters more often.

WHEN the grey tank is dumped, there will be a large amount of water loss. So do that in a place where the lost water can be quickly replaced, so you don't have to wait many days for the AWG to do it. But if the AWG -can- supply more than the daily loss rate, then you could just dump the grey and let the AWG slowly replenish the system.


You have to leave enough space in the grey to accept the incoming drain water from the shower, tub and sinks, and also leave enough space in the fresh tank to accept the recycled water from the grey.


Done deal.

 

[Haf-E]

Seems like the AWG could just be engine-driven - similar to a standard AC unit - so when you drive it produces water the whole time. When boon-docking, the engine could be intermittently operated to both produce water and charge the house batteries at an elevated idle speed. This allows the solar to be used for other loads, such as lights, tv and cold beer. The RO unit would be DC powered as it needs to operate for longer periods of time than the engine would.

I've used the water produced from AC units to refill batteries in the developing world when distilled water wasn't available. We even sent off some to a water lab to have it analyzed and it came back as - water... with very little of anything else in it. I don't think drinking it directly is a great idea as it can be contaminated by dust and molds etc. - but that will be take care of buy the RO filter.

 

[dwh]

Some random thoughts...

Assuming (guessing) the small Gr8 Water AWG uses 3.5kw per day
(which is actually realistic if it doesn't do all the stuff the little Ecolo does (i.e., UV/RO/heat water/chill water/defrost), and all it does is just condense water), and
Assuming it actually runs 24 hours a day (it might not need to), and
Assuming the 100l/hr 850w/hr numbers from the Great Aussie Adventure RO unit, and
Assuming the RO/recycling runs 2 hours per day, then

3.5 + 1.7 = 5.2 kwh per day power required for the system to recycle and keep itself topped off.


It's probably better to piss in the shower and recycle the water, rather than burning it up in the toilet.


The Eco-John is a "waterless incinerating toilet". It uses an auger screw to move the waste to the oven. It is NOT a "vacu-flush". However, it does have a small water reservoir for rinsing the bowl.

http://www.ecojohn.com/ecojohn_sr.html

The Eco-John SR-5 has a 3.5 gallon holding tank/oven. The SR-12 has a 5 gallon holding tank/oven. With either one, with two people using it, it might only need to run one incineration cycle per day rather than run an incineration cycle after every use.

I would customize the Eco-John to add an electric heating element as a backup in case the diesel burner quit working (or for high altitude operation). The normal Incinolet uses an 1800w element, and the heavier use units use 3600w. Could probably just cadge the heating element and thermostats from an Incinolet and add them to the Eco-John.



The tub doesn't have to be a soaking-only tub. You can use soap and use it for washing. Bath salts...um...dunno. Maybe not a good idea. There must always be enough empty space in the grey tank to accept the water drained from the tub.

 

[dwh]

And finally, since I did find an excellent Paint.NET clone for Lunix (Pinta), the missing cave painting showing the difference between an airc conditioner, and an AWG:

 

[aarfa]

Another calculation.

After quick search, the lightest solar panels that I found offer 36 W/kg. That's peak power. Based on this in a rather sunny area, you can expect very roughly 4 Wh/day from each Watt of peak power.
This means that the lightest panels produce 144 Wh/kg/day. And I suppose they have to be rather clean for that.

Diesel fuel offers 13.33 kWh/kg. Assume (somewhat optimistic) that you generate electricity from it with 30% efficiency. That's 4 kWh/kg. This means that a solar panel needs to work for nearly 28 days to generate as much electricity as fuel of the same weight. That's ignoring controller weight, cabling loss, etc. If you refuel more frequently than that, skipping solar altogether in favor of generator is more weight-efficient. As a side bonus, you get lower center of gravity.

Am I missing something?

ADDED:
40.68 W/kg
49 W/kg, still over 20 days.

I suppose that panels fare better when it comes to size though.

59 W/kg, 86 W/l, 145.9 W/m^2
Diesel has 9.94 kWh/l, after generation that's 2.98. Solar of equivalent volume needs 8 days and 16 hours to generate so much.

If I make no mistake, I don't see a good justification for solar in a vehicle that needs to have a generator anyway. At least as long as you actually want to travel.