DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A SOLAR DISTILLER UNIT FOR SEAWATER DESALINATION

Abstract

Water is the basic need to sustaining life on the earth for human.Solar still is a very simple solar device used for converting the available dirty/saline water into pure/potable water. This device can be fabricated easily with available materials. The maintenance is also cheap and no skilled labor is required to make it. This device can be suitable solution to solve drinking water problem. Various active methods were developed to overcome this problem. Here comparison is made between the solar still coupled with liquid flat plate collector as well as passive solar still. The obtained results indicated that maximum daily distilled water production of 5.3 and 4.2 L.m-2.day-1 were obtained in active and passive solar stills, respectively, at a water depth of 2.5 cm for the month of January. While maximum daily distilled water production of 8.4 and 6.5 L.m-2.day-1 obtained in active and passive solar stills, respectively, at a water depth of 2.5 cm for the month of June. So that, solar still coupled with liquid flat plate collector increases the productivity of solar still by 26.2% and 29.2% for January and June, respectively. Lower the water depth in the solar still basin increases the productivity of solar distiller and solar radiation can also produce considerable effect on productivity.