by Mikenan1

Question by rckgh1992: How to make reflective solar water heater?
I have a school project to make a solar water heater. It needs to take sunlight and reflect it onto/into a container that holds water. The surface are of the reflector needs to equal the amount of water in the container. So no giant mirrors heating an ounce of water. How do I do this?

Best answer:

Answer by Breath on the wind
There are several different ways. First you need to decide if you are going to use a flat reflective surface or a parabolic reflective surface.

Probably the easiest way is to get an old tv dish antenna (the small ones not a 10′ huge one) and make the surface reflective. You might try gluing aluminum foil on the inside. Add up your surface area and then put that much water at the focal point. This dish will have to remain pointed at the sun to work best.

Another way is to make a parabolic trough reflector. The water will be in a long pipe suspended at the focal point of a trough that is reflective. For this one it is enough to have the trough pointed east-west and tilted at the correct angle for the sun at this time of year. You might use aluminum flashing for the trough.

You could use flat mirrors that will be focused on the container. Because they are not curved they will not focus as well as a curved mirror but with enough mirrors it will still work.

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