A renewable energy-driven thermoelectric-utilized solar still with external condenser loaded by silver/nanofluid for simultaneously water disinfection and desalination

Abstract

Abstract The present study examined the performance of different modifications of identical solar stills (SSs) with heating/cooling and nanofluid. The first system is SS with thermoelectric heating (TEH) in the basin. The second system used TEH in the basin and loaded with nanofluid. The third SS used TEH as well as nanofluid and equipped with a double-slope symmetric external condenser that one side of it cooled by film of water and the other side with thermoelectric. Silver nanoparticle due to well-known characteristics in water disinfection was used with 0.03% weight. A series of experiment performed during one week in June 2019. Findings revealed that the daily yield and efficiency for SS with nanofluid/condenser and with nanofluid without condenser compared with SS without nanofluid/condenser improved by about 100.5%, 26.7% and 50.8%, 30.6% respectively. The highest productivity obtained by SS with nanofluid/condenser with 7760 cc/m2/day where the productivity from the glass-side increase by about 16.5% and 47.6% compared to SS with nanofluid without condenser and SS without nanofluid/condenser. Also it revealed that the contribution of external condenser in productivity is 26.3% of total productivity. Findings showed that the productivity of thermoelectric-side of condenser is more than 5 times higher than water film-side.