Performance evaluation of single slope solar still augmented with the ultrasonic fogger

Abstract

The surface area of basin water exposed to the incident solar radiations plays a vital role in the performance of a conventional solar still (CSS). This research article presents a new method to increase the distillate yield of CSS by augmenting it with an ultrasonic fogger/humidifier. Experimental and theoretical investigations are performed on CSS and CSS augmented with Ultrasonic fogger (MSS). The heat transfer coefficients were evaluated by using a thermal model which is based on regression analysis. The ultrasonic fogger has increased the water surface area and introduced the turbulence in the basin water, which results in the better performance of MSS over CSS. There has been an improvement of 97% in the value of evaporative heat transfer coefficient for MSS in comparison to CSS. MSS gives 33.26% higher distillate yield from 11:00 to 18:00 h in contrast to CSS. The augmentation of ultrasonic fogger has increased the mean thermal efficiency of MSS by 31.04%. It has been observed that the MSS yields remarkably when the direct solar radiations are falling on it. The per liter cost of potable water produced from MSS is 9.89% lower than its CSS counterpart.