Experimental and theoretical investigations on the performance of inclined type solar stills

Abstract

Water and energy are the two most essential resources for newlinesustaining of life. The demand for fresh water is rapidly increasing, while newlinesupply has been decreasing over the decades. The shortage of portable newlinedrinking water can be resolved through the desalination of seawater. newlineConventional techniques for desalination are available, but they require a newlinelarge input of energy, mostly from fossil fuels that contribute to newlineenvironmental degradation. Solar desalination systems provide the best newlinesolution to this problem, by desalinating fresh water economically in an ecofriendly newlinemanner.Solar still is a simple solar desalinating setup, which is newlinecapable of producing 3 litres of potable water per day for a collecting area of newline1m2.Solar stills have been extensively used in the water scarcity regions of the newlineworld, but their major limitation is low productivity. Most of the research newlineworks done in the field of solar desalination are to improve the solar still newlineefficiency and its distillate output. In a basin still, water is stagnant on the newlineabsorber surface, whereas in an inclined still, water flows from the top to the newlinebottom of the absorber surface. Compared to basin stills, inclined stills yield newlinehigher distillate productivity due to their longitudinal flow of water along the newlineabsorber surface. The main drawbacks associated with inclined solar stills are newlinethe inability to maintain wetness along the inclined surface, the low residence newlinetime of water and the loss of heat through raw drain water. newline newline