The influence of integrating energy storage processes to enhance the performance of effectively designed solar stills: a review

Abstract

The accessibility of potable water has always been a serious challenge, and the need for both potable water and other resources is increasing year by year. The desalination technique, which uses solar still to produce freshwater while having limited resources, is useful not only in arid areas but also in more developed areas. The distillate output value of a conventional solar still can vary from 1.5 to 4 L/m2/day, which is not enough to consume daily. As a result, an attempt has been made in this article to review the modifications that were categorised based on the various designs of solar stills and summarized based on their maximum productivity and efficiency. Active and passive solar stills were discussed based on recent advancements. It is found from the study that MESS and TSS can be suitable designs for industrial applications, and SSSS and DSSS can be used with different designs for domestic applications. Moreover, in recent studies, the use of weir cascade and rotating wick designs showed maximum thermal efficiency of 76.69% and 84%, respectively. Highlights Based on design developments, all the major designs of solar stills are analysed and comprehensively reviewed. The recent work in active and passive solar stills showed major advancements in design and performance for better distillate yield. Diverse designs of solar still demonstrated significant performance enhancement and gain in efficiency and a new design of solar still can be developed for solving major agricultural groundwater problems. The applicability of various energy storage materials is also examined, and the use of wicks and paraffin wax led to significant improvements in the performance of solar stills. Compared to other designs of solar stills, tubular and multi-effect solar stills showed the maximum productivity and can be utilised for diverse industrial applications. Single- and double-slope solar still can be utilised for domestic applications in arid and more developed areas. The weir cascade and rotating wick design showed maximum thermal efficiency when compared with other major designs of solar still.