Let's not confuse stuff here. SOLAS is a set of standards (Safety Of Life At Sea) for various equipment and requirements for equipage. Contrary to popular use, there are no SOLAS Regulations or Approvals, that is all done by national authorities (e.g. U.S. Coast Guard for the U.S.). SOLAS doesn't really have anything to so with Solar Stills per se, but they could theoretically be used to meet various SOLAS standards for fresh water producing devices in lieu of stored water in some circumstances.


Actually they can be effective, but are temperamental and won't work without sunny skies and/or in heavy seas (usually accompanied by bad weather anyway). Read Adrift by Steve Callahan for a story where they saved his life, albeit with careful tending and improvisation on Steve's part.

A lot of the desalination projects in the Middle East are intended to provide large volumes to cities.
I think a lot of them are reverse osmosis units, but I am not sure about that at all.

Here is something about a distillation plant in Saudi Arabia
http://www.water-technology.net/projects/shuaiba/

They tell in the article why they used flash distillation instead of reverse osmosis, but they note in passing that reverse osmosis is a common method too.

This article outlines a bit of the scale of the problem and the problem of meeting it with solar desalinization plants.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3520

It produces 1.7 litres of water per day.

The round shape is probably easier and cheaper to produce.

And older article on the Watercone (when the inventor first came up with it and was looking for financial backers) said the price was $150 US per unit. That's pretty expensive, even if it was made from Lexan. http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Ultra-Cheap_20Solar_20Water_20Distillation

Edit: That was the price in 2006, the price indicated on the site is $50 US. Still high for the people who really need it.

Sue