I did some research into how long water has to sit in the sun in order for the sun's germicidal UV radiation to clean it. To my surprise, water needs only 6 hours in the sun to kill pathogens (2 days if the sky is cloudy). I do not know how well using the sun would work for this project, because I am unsure as to how far the light would penetrate the water, and due to the shape of the barrel during certain portions of the day sunlight might not reach the water.
I then realized that when water evaporates, the pathogens do not evaporate with the water. Therefore, the water that flows into the storage tank is already free of pathogens, and the UV light becomes obsolete. However, the unit will still have UV light to act as a fail safe.
These websites are what led me to these conclusions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainwater_tank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection
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