Experimental assessment of the effect of black dye and water depth on the performance of PV/solar distiller

Abstract

The current article investigated the possibility of enhancing the solar distiller performance joined with the photovoltaic/thermal solar collector by increasing the absorption of solar radiation through the use of black dye. Two identical systems were built, the first system is a conventional double-slope solar distiller, while the other is a modified version that combines a PV/thermal solar collector with a double-slope solar distiller. The effect of the black dye and the water depth in the basin on the solar distiller’s performance has been studied. The results showed that the modified system works well in cold winter conditions in comparison with hot summer conditions. The results also showed that the water depth inside the distiller basin effectively affects the output of the system. The system achieved better performance when the water depth was 3 cm in the still basin than when the water depth was 5 cm. The total production and efficiency of the improved distiller at the water height of 3 cm at the basin with adding the black dye in February were 1.378%, and 22.02% respectively. while for the conventional model, the total productivity and efficiency were 0.348 liter/day and 5.31% respectively for the same conditions.