An experimental study on an inclined solar water distillation system

Abstract

An inclined solar water distillation system was designed and tested under actual environmental conditions of northern Cyprus. Unlike solar still systems, the feed water falls down on the solar absorber plate, and the system produces fresh water and hot water simultaneously. It was suspected that the longer the flowing water is held on the absorber plate, the greater the rate of evaporation, leading to an increase in the amount of distilled water. Therefore, the system was tested with three variants: bare plate, black-cloth wick, and black-fleece wick. As was expected, the wicks increased the fresh water generation by two or three times of a bare plate. The hot water temperature was good enough for domestic usage.