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Performance evaluation of solar stills

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 INCOM18: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Mechanical Engineering
Jadavpur University Kolkata India January 4 – 6, 2018
Paper No. INCOM18-226

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF SOLAR STILLS

Amey M. Pednekar1, Sandipan Bandyopadhyay1, Dhiman Chatterjee2
1
Department of Engineering Design, IIT Madras, Chennai, India
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras, Chennai, India

ABSTRACT
Solar desalination is becoming increasingly viable particularly in a country like India that receives sufficient
sunshine throughout the year and has long coastline. Solar still, a common device used for this purpose, is
simple in principle and operation but suffers from low productivity. The objective of this work is to bring out
the importance of different parameters affecting still performance and thereby improve the performance of the
still. Thus, starting from 2.2 l/m2 of average water produced in a day in case of a basic still geometry, final
design of the still containing a passive condenser and fitted with a mirror produces 4.5 l/m2 of water, which is
higher than that reported in literature for the given geographical region.
Keywords: solar still, desalination, minimum depth, passive condenser,
mirror
1. INTRODUCTION Performance of solar stills are greatly affected
Rapid industrialization together with by many factors, including the depth of water in
population growth has resulted in an increased the basin, thermal insulation and vapour leakage,
demand for freshwater. Presence of large volume shape and material of the still and climatic
of sea water provides both challenge and conditions like solar radiation, wind speed and
opportunity to obtain freshwater through the ambient temperature. The main drawback of the
process of desalination. It has been pointed out by conventional solar still is its very poor
Li et al. [1] that, though sea water desalinization productivity (about 2-4 l/m2 of water produced per
involves a very high capital cost, it is becoming day as mentioned by Kalogrirous [2]), and hence
increasingly viable owing to the severe water many efforts towards better designing of stills
shortage that 70% of the world population will have been made in the past to improve the
face by 2025 and also because about 50% of the productivity. Al-Hayek and Badran [3] had used
people live within 200 km of the sea coasts. If symmetrical and asymmetrical solar stills and
desalination is carried out using conventional found that the productivity of asymmetrical solar
fossil-based energy, the recurrent consumption not still is about 20% higher than the symmetrical one.
only makes the scheme expensive but also causes They have also observed that, as long as depth of
environmental pollution. On the other hand, for a water is low, depth of water plays no significant
country like India, in the tropical and sub-tropical role. Aybar et al. [4] had studied the performance
regions, daily solar radiation is more than twice of inclined solar water distillation system which
the global average [1]. Hence, solar desalination produces fresh as well as hot water. It was found
proves to be an attractive means of producing that the distillate output increased by 23% when
clean water using solar power. This forms the black wick was used instead of the bare bottom
motivation behind the present work. plate. However, the hardness of the freshwater
Solar desalination involving phase change can increased in the presence of wicks in comparison
be of different types (multistage flash, multi-effect to the bare plate. Kabeel [5] had used basin type
distillation, humidification-dehumidification, solar still with concave wick surface for
passive vacuum desalination, solar still, etc.). The evaporation and other sides of the pyramidal-
present work focuses on the use of solar still shaped still for condensation and recorded an
which works based on the principle of greenhouse output of 4 l/m2 in a day. Hansen et al. [6] have
effect. In this approach, radiation from the sun produced the maximum distillate of 4.28 l/day for
evaporates water inside a closed chamber, covered a period of 12 hours using water coral fleece
with transparent sheet made of polymer or glass at whose performance was found to be superior to
a temperature higher than the ambient other wick materials tested.
temperature. The water vapour, thus formed, Literature survey discussed above shows that
condenses on the inside surface of the cool there has been a continual improvement as
transparent top and produces droplets of water different design approaches have been pursued.
which are collected through channels outside the However, it is also clear that there is scope for
still. Figure 1 shows the working of a typical solar improvement of the design and operation of single
still. solar still by systematically studying the different
design options on a basic solar still design. This
approach, which seems missing in the existing
1
 literature, is expected to bring out relative at an angle of 5 so as to speed up the condensate
importance of different parameters in increasing collection and avoid tendency for water droplets to
re-evaporate. The condensate is collected in a
container placed atop a weight sensor and periodic
readings are taken to determine the amount of
water collected. Experiments were conducted
between 9 am and 5 pm in the months of February
till April (in the year 2016) when the ambient
temperature varied between 34.4 C and 39.2 C
and the wind speed was in the range of 0.8-5 m/s.
Further details and exact daily variations of
Fig. 1: Schematic of a simple basin-type solar temperature and wind speed are given in the report
still by Pednekar [8]. The measured parameters
The efficiency of the solar still and is likely to recorded were air temperature near the top plate,
help arrive at a superior design. This forms the basin water temperature, ambient air temperature
main objective of the present paper. Another and water mass collected. LM 35 sensors were used
objective of the work is to develop a low-cost, to measure the atmospheric temperature as well as
fully passive solution so that it can reach a larger the top cover and DS18B20 was used for recording
section of the population, particularly in water temperature. All temperature information
developing countries. was stored in a data logger.
In the next section, details of the experimental Initially experiment was carried out with (a)
set up and methodology have been explained. That charcoal and (b) sand bed to determine which one
is followed by the presentation of results and ensures a higher temperature rise. Figure 3 shows
discussion of the significance of the observed and that charcoal had a higher temperature rise (peak
measured data in Section 3. temperature reached is 84 C, in the dry condition)
in comparison to sand (76 C). Thus, in all other
2. EXPERIMENTAL SET UP AND experiments reported in this paper, a charcoal bed
METHOD was used. This geometry is termed as the "basic
It has been mentioned in the previous section geometry" of the solar still in this work. Effect of
that several factors affect the performance of the condenser has been shown to be important in
solar still. Of these, some parameters like solar literature and a solar still fitted with a passive
radiation, ambient temperature and wind speed are condenser was used in some of the experiments
natural and hence ambient temperature and wind (Fig. 2(b)). In some experiments, a mirror was
speed are monitored during the experiments. Other fitted with the solar still to reflect the incident
factors which affect the performance can be sunlight on the water (Fig. 2(c)).
broadly linked with the geometry and construction
of the still. Some of these parameters are the still
size, shape and inclination angle, choice of bed (a)
material, depth of water, presence of condenser or a
reflecting surface. For the ease of fabrication, flat,
rectangular solar still was chosen as the test bed.
Modifications are then added to this still to study
effects of other parameters/design features.
A single-basin, glass-walled solar still has been
designed and fabricated as shown in Fig. 2(a). The (b)
base is formed by an 8 mm thick square sheet of
glass, which gives the still a footprint of 0.64 m2.
Below the plate, an 18 mm thick plywood board
was used to support the base plate as well as to
provide insulation. The top cover was made of a 4 (c)
mm thick glass plate placed at an inclination of 13
with the horizontal, corresponding to the latitude of
Chennai as suggested by Sukhatme and Nayak [7]
for ensuring maximum incident solar radiation. The
top cover was supported by 6 mm thick vertical
glass plates on all sides and RTV silicone sealant
was used to prevent leakage. The collection Fig. 2: Different designs of solar still
channel was made of glass as well and was inclined
Fig. 3: Bed temperature in case of charcoal and Fig. 5: Difference between temperature of water
sand and that on the top plate for different depths of
water
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The next design enhancement attempted was
It is shown in literature that, at the same solar the introduction of a condenser. Yeh et al. [11]
radiation condition, lowering of water depth inside have shown that significant improvement could be
the basin results in increased evaporation [9] but, as achieved by reducing still pressure and by
mentioned earlier, Al-Hayek and Badran [3] had continuous removal of water vapour. However, this
suggested that the influence of water depth is not implies sacrificing the concept of passive basin still
significant. Hence, in this work, at first a suitable and hence, in the present work, a passive condenser
water depth is arrived at (Fig. 4). Fig. 4(a) shows shown in Fig. 2(b) was used. Condenser used in the
the diurnal variation of productivity for 5 mm depth present work occupies 35% of the still volume and
of water. Also shown is a comparison with no attempt was made to optimize the geometry.
theoretical prediction calculated on the basis of the Figure 6 shows the effect of un-cooled and cooled
work by Dunkle [10]. Since the effect of charcoal is passive condenser and Fig. 6(a) shows a typical
not considered, the theoretical estimation performance of an un-cooled condenser. It is clear
underpredicts the behaviour. From Fig. 4(b) it is that though cooled passive condenser is ~5% more
clear that there is ~9% and ~16% deterioration effective than un-cooled one, the un-cooled device
when depth is increased from 5 mm to 7 mm and 9 itself registers a ~54% improvement over the basic
mm respectively. Hence in the remaining work, still.
depth is maintained at 5 mm. The reason for
improved behaviour at a water depth of 5 mm is
clear from Fig. 5 which shows the difference
between water temperature and that at the top
surface. It is seen that though the temperature
difference is same at the beginning of the
experiment, lowest water depth of 5 mm reaches
highest temperature fastest, while 7 mm one takes 2
hours longer time to reach similar temperature and
that for 9 mm never reaches the levels attained by Fig. 6: Effect of condenser. (a) diurnal
the other two depths. variation in case of un-cooled condenser, and,
(b) comparison between un-cooled and water-
cooled condenser

Effect of introducing an external mirror was

found to increase productivity by ~21% but it also
adds to the complexity and hence merely adding a
mirror to the basic still is not an attractive option.
Hence, a flow from an external storage was brought
Fig. 4: Effect of water depth. (a) diurnal in to maintain the depth of water (Fig. 7(a)) and
variation of productivity at 5 mm depth, (b) also the water-cooled condenser was utilized (Fig.
comparison of cumulative productivity for 7(b)). It is seen that there is a significant
different depths improvement over the basic model and this fact is
brought out clearly in Fig. 8. A comparison with
Fig. 5 shows that, whereas for the base geometry
the temperature difference is 4.5C, in case of
mirror with condenser and external water storage
shows a difference of 9C. Figure 9 shows an
 INCOM18: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Mechanical Engineering
Jadavpur University Kolkata India January 4 – 6, 2018
Paper No. INCOM18-226

overall comparison of different design functional units like the depth of water, passive
modifications and it shows that the highest condenser, mirror and external flow are clearly
production of water is about 4.5 l/m2, which is brought out. It is shown that the basic solar still
higher than that obtained by Hansen et al. [6] using employed here is capable of producing 2.2 l/m2 of
wick. water and the final recommended design can
produce 4.5 l/m2, which perhaps is higher than the
highest productivity reported at least in this part of
the world.

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors thank Ms. Sonal Shandilya for
rendering the drawings of the solar stills.
Fig. 7: Effect of mirror-fitted with the basic still
geometry. (a) only external storage is added, 6. REFERENCES
and, (b) external storage and water-cooled
condenser used
[1] Li, C., Goswami, Y. and Stefanakos, E., 2013,
Renew. Sust. Energy Rev., 19, 136-163.

[2] Kalogirou, S., 1997, Energy, 22, 69-81.

[3] Al-Hayek, I. and Badran, O.O., 2004,

Desalination, 169, 121-127.

[4] Aybar, H.S., Egelioglu, F. and Atikol, U., 2005,

Desalination, 180, 285-289.

[5] Kabeel, A.E., 2009, Energy, 34, 1504-1509.

[6] Hansen, R. S., Surya Narayanan, C.,

Murugavel, K. K., 2015, Desalination, 358, 1-8.
Fig. 8: Temperature difference between water
and top plate in case of a mirror-fitted solar still [7] Sukhatme, S. P. and Nayak, J. K., 2008, Solar
and a mirror-fitted solar still where external Energy: Principles of Thermal Collection and
storage and water-cooled condenser is used Storage, Third Edition, McGraw Hill, India.

[8] Pednekar, A. M., 2016, Performance evaluation

of the different designs of the solar still", Dual
Degree Project Report, Engg. Des. Department, IIT
Madras, India.

[9] Tarawneh, M.S.K., JJMIE, 1(1), 23-29.

[10] Dunkle RV. Solar water distillation; the roof

type still and a multiple effect diffusion still,
International Developments in Heat Transfer,
ASME. In: Proceedings of International Heat
Transfer Part V. University of Colorado; 1961. p.
895.

[11] Yeh, H.-M., Ten, L.-W. and Chen, L.-C.,

Fig. 9: Comparison of cumulative productivity
1985, Energy, 10(6), 683-688.
for different cases reported in this paper

4. CONCLUSIONS
Conventional solar stills used for desalination
suffer from low productivity and efficiency. In this
paper a systematic experimental work is reported
where roles played by different parameters and

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