Experimental study and economic cost analysis about enhancement productivity for a conventional solar still combined with humidifiers ultrasonic

Abstract

ABSTRACT This work investigates and compares the yield of distillate water and economic feasibility of two types of solar stills, namely the conventional solar still (CSS) and the suggested solar still (SSS). Both the solar stills (CSS and MSS) were identical in dimensions and under the same operating conditions to facilitate comparison of the thermal performance. An hourly daily production analysis was performed for both models together with the detailed analysis to assess the annual cost of producing a liter of distilled water. The purpose of the present work is to overcome the relatively low productivity issues of conventional solar stills and excessive fog from humidifiers ultrasonic during low solar radiation intensity hours. Therefore, the suggested solar still (SSS) was augmented by humidifiers ultrasonic devices inside the basin water solar still, and covering it with a cotton cloth cover, to increases the evaporation surface area, reducing the distinctive dimension and not allowing the generated fog to spread even in cases of low solar radiation and the most important is increased the distilled daily water productivity in comparison with conventional solar still. The results reveal that the suggested solar still (SSS) has a daily yield higher than of CSS by 68%, SSS thermal efficiency reached 1.1 times (110%) in comparison with CSS at 4:00 pm. The proposed improvement has reduced the cost of producing a liter of distillate water by 34.9% compared to CSS. To verify the importance of the suggested solar still, a comparison was conducted with the previous studies in terms of the cost of producing a liter of distilled water. The analysis of the results revealed that there is an appropriate agreement between the previous works and the suggested solar still in the current work.