Optimization configuration of scrubber steel wire coils as porous materials for augmenting the performance of hemispherical distillers

Abstract

BackgroundThe present study aims to improve the productivity of hemispherical solar distillers to overcome the problem of freshwater shortage facing many countries of the world, especially remote countries, due to population increase and climate changes. To achieve this goal, scrubber steel wire coils were incorporated in the basin of a hemispherical distiller as porous materials and energy store materials. To identify the best configuration of installation and form of scrubber steel wire coils that provides the highest thermal efficiency of hemispherical solar distillers (HSDs), two configurations were considered for installing and forming the scrubber steel wire coils inside the basin; spiral form and cake form. MethodsTo examine their performance experimentally, besides to a traditional HSD (THSD), two new HDSs, one containing spiral-shaped coils of scrubber steel wire (HSD-SSCSSW), and one HDS with cake-shaped coils of scrubber steel wire (HSD-CSCSSW) were constructed and studied under same climate weather conditions. Significant findingsOutcomes showed that the HSD-CSCSSW is the best configuration that provides the highest hemispherical distiller performance. Its distillate accumulation reached 7110 mL/m2, while THSD accumulation totaled 4830 mL/m2. The accumulation productivity of the HSD-CSCSSW is 1.472 times higher than the output of THSD. Outcomes proved that utilizing the scrubber steel wire coils in the shape of a cake is a good choice which augments the thermal and exergy efficiencies by 46.47 and 101.1%.