Experimental and numerical study of the effect of various design configurations on the thermal performance of solar still desalination

Abstract

The daily productivity of two solar stills (SSs) was investigated experimentally and numerically. Two modifications were done to increase the daily productivity of the conventional SS which include the embedment of mirrors on two side walls and perforated-suspended plate (SP) with various depths. The perforated-SP was placed inside the basin water with different bed depths. The left and right sides were fabricated in double glass with a gap distance to avoid more heat losses from the side walls and simultaneously to place a mirror according to the daytime. The theoretical model was solved numerically by utilizing the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method and the program was written by FORTRAN. The experimental results of conventional SS were verified by the numerical method. The maximum productivity was obtained 4.24 kg/m2/day where the mirror was placed in sides and the suspend plate was placed at 0.7 cm in the basin water with a depth of 2.6 cm. The daily productivity was increased by 43% compared to the conventional type. In addition, the thermal efficiency of SS increased 28% in comparison to the conventional SS. The results of the experimental study illustrate that utilizing mirror in sides and suspend plate on the basin water has obvious enhancement in the daily productivity.