Productivity Enhancement of a Single Slope Solar Still with Energy Storage Medium

Abstract

The increase in the population demand for freshwater particularly in urban areas. Solar water distillation is the simplest and is the low-cost process used to get fresh water from brackish and seawater. Solar stills are common because of their low cost and suitability to use throughout the world but the productivity of simple solar still is very little. In this work, an experimental study is accomplished to study the improvement of productivity by exploitation of Omani rock stone bed as a liveliness packing medium in the still basin. The rock stone bed can absorb solar energy during sunshine and release the energy for vaporizing the seawater after sunshine which leads to an increase in freshwater productivity. For this a solar still is fabricated to perform two sets of experiments; one with conventional still, another with the rock stone bed in the basin. The energy consumption and efficiency of the still-in-together cases are observed. It is detected that it can improve productivity 18.6% higher than the conventional still. The freshwater quality is tested by using water quality testing and confirmed its suitability for domestic purposes. The results are encouraging and the developed solar still is simpler to build using locally available materials and is easy to maintain. The approach of using the rock stone bed in the basin as an energy-storing medium for higher solar still yield can be implemented in any part of the world.