Effect of condenser design on the performance of the natural circulation loop solar still: An experimental study

Abstract

AbstractThis paper deals with an experimental study performed to evaluate the condenser geometry effect on the natural circulation loop solar still (NCLSS) performance. Three configurations for the external condenser, namely smooth single‐tube condenser, finned‐tube condenser, and three‐tube condenser, were tested under typical summer conditions. The experimental data show that the obtained daily productivity of the NCLSS for the three condenser designs was 2.057, 2.628, and 3.3 kg/m2, respectively. The comparison shows that adding external annular fins to the smooth single‐tube condenser increases the still's daily productivity by about 27%. The increase in both internal and external areas of the condenser increases the freshwater daily productivity by 60.42% than the smooth single‐tube design and by 25.57% than the finned‐tube design. The calculations show that the daily thermal efficiency of the NCLSS was 16%, 20.8%, and 25.38% for the three test days, respectively. While, the daily exergy efficiency for the three condenser designs was 1.78%, 2.12%, and 2.22%, respectively.