PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF A TUBULAR SOLAR STILL INCORPORATED WITH POROUS SOIL TO IMPROVE DISTILLATE OUTPUT

Abstract

The scarcity of fresh water is one of the leading concerns for underprivileged remote communities due to their unaffordability to the conventional water supply. Bearing in mind the changing climatic conditions and annual increment in water demand, desalination has been stated as highly adequate since it utilizes natural sunlight and the simple concepts of evaporation and condensation to produce potable water. The productivity of conventional solar stills is reported to have been greatly influenced mainly due to design specifications and operating and ambient conditions. Herein, an experimental study was conducted focusing mainly on the output efficiency of a conventional rotatable tubular still and a conventional rotatable tubular still incorporated with native porous material to assure rapid condensation. Prior to conducting the runs, saline water samples were prepared at varying concentrations. Among several designs, the tubular was still selected due to its maximum exposure to solar radiation supported by an effective condensation collection zone. The design frame was modified by incorporating a few additional characteristics, i.e., (i) rotating the basin to 360° for smooth collection of vapors and (ii) bringing the native soil in contact to the basin cover to drop the vapor temperature, leading to better and timely yielding outputs. Initially, the potential hourly output of the conventional solar was still noticed alone; later, it was analyzed with the native soil to evaluate the yield productivity. The study outcome shows that the contact of basin cover with the soil leads to better yields under different ambient conditions. Thus, the proposed native method proved to have shown feasible improvements when compared to the conventional approach alone.