Improving the Cascade Solar Still Performance Using Baffles Fixed on the Absorber Plate: Experimental Study

Abstract

This work presents an experimental study of novel cascade solar still with baffles. Cascade solar still has been fabricated and tested experimentally, then modified by fixing additional baffles to sloped absorber surfaces. This modification enhances the evaporative surface area and the solar energy receiving area, resulting in an increase in the productivity of the still. The influence of solar radiation, glass cover temperature, basin water temperature, hourly and the daily productivity of cascade solar stills with baffles and without baffles have been studied. Experimentation has been conducted to compare the performance of the cascade solar still with baffles and cascade solar still without baffles. The experimental results have showed that the cascade solar still with baffles has produced higher distillate output in comparison to the cascade solar still without baffles. Furthermore, the cascade solar still with baffles has enhanced the productivity by 46% compared to the cascade solar still without baffles. The higher daily productivity obtained during the experimentation of both cascade solar stills with baffles and without baffles has been about 2.443 kg/m2 day, 1.732 kg/m2 day, respectively. Whereas, the thermal efficiency of cascade solar still with baffles has been 40% and the one of the cascade solar still without baffles has been 30.43%.