article · Desalination and Water Treatment
Solar stills purify water using sunlight, but their output is heavily influenced by geometric design. A comparative evaluation assessed the daily distillate yield and energy efficiency across three fabricated prototypes: spherical, hemispherical, and conventional single-slope solar stills. The spherical configuration demonstrated the highest performance, achieving a cumulative daily productivity of 5.5 kg per square metre and an energy efficiency of 44 percent. In comparison, the hemispherical prototype yielded 4.45 kg per square metre per day with an efficiency of 40.5 percent, while the single-slope design produced 3.1 kg per square metre per day with 35 percent efficiency. Overall, shifting to a spherical shape increased daily water output by 77.42 percent relative to the single-slope model, while the hemispherical design improved yield by 43.55 percent. The spherical geometry is therefore identified as an optimal design for reliable drinking water production.
Clean drinking water access remains a major global challenge, particularly in areas lacking reliable electrical infrastructure. Demonstrating that altering the physical shape of a solar still significantly boosts both daily clean water yields and energy efficiency provides a low-cost, passive mechanism to enhance the performance of solar-driven water purification systems.
The work represents applied and tested hardware research based on physical prototype fabrication and testing. It directly enables manufacturers and non-governmental organisations producing off-grid water purification systems to transition from standard flat or sloped stills to spherical designs. This geometry yields substantially more potable water from the same surface area, though the abstract does not describe steps towards industrial manufacturing or field deployment.
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The productivity of a solar still is profoundly influenced by its design. This study presents a comparative analysis of the daily yield and energy efficiency of three distinct solar still designs—spherical, hemispherical, and single slope—to ascertain the optimal configuration. The investigation involved the design and fabrication of three solar still prototypes: spherical, hemispherical, and single slope. The results revealed that the spherical distillation design achieved the highest cumulative productivity, reaching 5.5 kg/m²/day, whereas the hemispherical design yielded 4.45 kg/m²/day, and the single-slope design produced 3.1 kg/m²/day. The daily distillate was notably enhanced by 77.42% and 43.55% for the spherical and hemispherical designs, respectively, in comparison to the single-slope design. The efficiencies of the spherical, hemispherical, and single-sloped designs were 44%, 40.5%, and 35%, respectively. The primary conclusion drawn is that spherical distillation markedly elevates the yield compared to hemispherical and single slope distillation configurations. Therefore, the adoption of a spherical solar still is recommended for the reliable production of safe drinkable water.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.dwt.2024.100051
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