Experimental Investigation of Solar Still with Corrugated Absorber Surface for Domestic Desalination Use

Abstract

AbstractThe main target of this work is to examine the thermal and productive performances of a solar still using corrugated absorber surfaces. For the absorber surface, three configurations of corrugations are tested experimentally: triangular shape and two types of undulations. For domestic application, the still has a base area of 1170 mm × 810 mm. Moreover, the performance of the system is presented through the daily thermal efficiency and daily productivity of distilled water efficiency. The thermal efficiency for each corrugated surface of absorber is 50%, 39%, and 46%. For the three shapes, the production of distilled water varies between 81% and 85%. The comparison between the solar stills shows that the triangular shape of the absorber surface presents high performance in thermal efficiency and productive efficiency. Furthermore, the production of distilled water is enhanced from 5 L/m2/day with sinusoidal corrugations to 8 L/m2/day with triangular shapes. In addition, the present domestic solar still presents a gain to provide distilled water in the rural zones of Morocco.KeywordsCorrugationDistilled waterProductivitySolar stillThermal efficiency