Development of novel coating and energy storage materials for improving thermal performance of solar distillation unit

Abstract

For all forms of life on our planet, water is essential. The role of water is critical in preserving the sustainability of the environment. With increasing population, there is tremendous rise in the clean water demand. Although, for purifying water, several water desalination methods are available such as multi-stage flash, reverse osmosis etc., but these methods generally require high energy consumption and their infrastructure requires higher cost. Solar energy based water desalination could provide an alternate sustainable answer to the severe water crisis. Solar based desalination using solar stills are low-cost, simple device, which are widely used to purify brackish water, however the major concern of SS is its lower water productivity. Hence, the present work aims to overcome lower water yield problem of solar still through the usage of coating materials (nano-silicon coating on condenser and MXene and activated carbon coating on absorber) in single basin single slope solar still and energy storage materials (via sensible, latent and interfacial materials) in tubular solar still and to compare the water yield of these modified solar still with their respective still. During the experimental investigation with three modification in single basin solar still and three modification in tubular solar still (six modification in total), the solar radiation, ambient temperature, wind velocity, and temperature of glazing cover, water and absorber along with the fresh water yield of the SS were recorded for every one hour. newline