Temperature Analysis of Conventional Solar Still linked to Passive Cylindrical Condensers

Abstract

In recent years, solar distillation has gained momentum and is regarded as one of the most promising methods of utilizing solar energy to produce fresh water from brackish and sea water, mainly on a small production scale and in remote regions. The enhancement of solar stills performances and improving their productivity has been the main goals of the investigators. This experimental work has been conducted to explore ways of increasing distillation productivity of a conventional, simple basin type solar still. Therefore two identical simple type solar stills were designed, manufactured, and tested under the actual environment of the Kingdom of Bahrain at Gulf University, during the month of March 2013, one of which was linked to external passive cylindrical condensers. The two stills glass cover's tilt angle was fixed at 20º to the horizontal, the water depth was controlled and fixed at 1 cm, and each still basin effective area was 1 m². It has been found that the daily production rate of the solar still connected to the cylindrical condensers produced 26.9%, more fresh water compared to that of a conventional solar still. The temperatures of the solar stills linked to condensers was found (in general) to be lower than that of the conventional solar still due to the extra cooling surface provided by the existence of the external condensers and better thermal conductivity