INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MEDICAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES ISSN:2320‐3137 117 www.earthjournals.org Volume 2 Issue 3 2013 ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE DEVELOPMENT OF A BIOMASS FUELLED HOUSEHOLD WATER DISTILLER Famurewa J A V , Oluwasola E I Department of Food Science and Technology, Federal University of Technology, Akure ABSTRACT Distillation is one of the oldest methods of water treatment the process can remove nearly all impurities from water but the high cost of electricity required to heat the water to generate steam makes the operational cost for distillation very significant and among the highest of available home drinking water systems. A continuous biomass fuelled water distiller was therefore designed and constructed with the aim of producing potable water that excludes nearly all contaminants at a low cost using biomass as its energy source. The design put into consideration durability, acceptability, ease of maintenance and versatility of the equipment and was constructed from stainless steel. The materials were selected based on American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE) standards. The distiller was evaluated for performance test. Raw water was obtained from a residential well and the equipment was used to distill the water with charcoal and sawdust as heat sources. A one off unit cost of the equipment was estimated at about N 20,556 and has a production flow rate of 461.54 cm 3 /hr The energy cost per unit distilled water was found to be N 43.27/ Litre and N 22.44/ Litre for charcoal and sawdust respectively while the energy requirement is 16.65kcal/ml and 15.62kcal/ml for charcoal and saw dust respectively. The study showed that the designed equipment was able to produce efficiently safe distilled water at a relatively low cost. Key words: Distillation, Boiling, Cooling, Biomass INTRODUCTION : Earth, wind, fire and water are the fundamental elements of the earth, only oxygen is more essential than water in sustaining life of all living things. According to Backer (1995),[1] man can survive for some weeks without food but not without water, we only need to lose 1 – 2% water for our bodies to start registering thirst if we lose more than 20% of water there is a severe damage to our health [2]. Although developing countries are located in all geographic regions, problems of water supply and sanitation are common in all these countries. In many of their urban areas, water supply and sewage pipes run so close to each other that frequent drinking water contamination in distribution systems by sewage can be expected [3-6] According to WHO (1985) [6] and Crump et al., (2005) [7], 1.1 billion people lack access to improved drinking water supply, 88% of the 4 billion annual cases of diarrheal disease are attributed to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene, and 1.8 million people die from diarrheal diseases each year. WHO estimates that 94% of these diarrheal cases are preventable through modifications to the environment, including