article · Case Studies in Thermal Engineering
Water purification using tubular solar stills can be significantly enhanced by redesigning the absorber and integrating specialised materials. Replacing a conventional flat plate absorber with a newly designed convex absorber increases the internal vaporisation surface area by roughly 21.3 percent. This convex tubular solar still was evaluated alongside wick materials, specifically jute cloth and cotton, as well as titanium dioxide and graphene nanocomposites. The modified configuration consistently produced more distilled water than the standard unit across all test conditions. Adding jute cloth boosted daily distillate output substantially, and combining jute cloth with nanocomposites achieved the highest daily productivity of 9000 millilitres per square metre, more than double the standard design output of 4200 millilitres per square metre. Daily thermal efficiency also improved from 33 percent to 50 percent without requiring additional horizontal space.
Solar stills offer an accessible way to purify water using renewable energy, but low output often limits their utility. By altering the absorber geometry and adding affordable wicks with nanocomposites, clean water production can more than double. This design enhances freshwater yields without increasing the physical footprint of the system, making solar water distillation more practical for decentralized purification needs.
The technology could benefit manufacturers and operators of small-scale solar desalination and water purification equipment. By demonstrating tested improvements using readily available materials like jute alongside nanocomposites, the research sits at an applied, experimental testing stage. Further development would be required to evaluate manufacturing costs, long-term material stability, and practical deployment in remote or off-grid water supply contexts.
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In this work, the performance of tubular solar still (TSS) was aimed to be improved experimentally. Increasing the surface area inside the solar still is a main parameter of its performance. So, a new-designed convex absorber was used for the first time instead of the flat plate absorber to increase the vaporization and exposure surface areas inside the solar still. The TSS with a convex absorber was nominated as convex tubular solar still (CVTSS). In addition, for further improvement of CVTSS performance, two different types of wick materials (jute cloth and cotton wick) were investigated. Moreover, the effect of using TiO2 and graphene nanocomposites on the CVTSS performance was studied. Experimental results obtained that using the convex absorber increased the vaporization surface area by around 21.3%. So, the water distillate of the CVTSS was greater than that of the TSS under all investigated conditions. Besides, using the jute cloth with the CVTSS improved the daily distillate by 114% and 92.5% with and without nanocomposites, respectively. The highest daily productivity of CVTSS was obtained when using jute cloth with nanocomposites, where it was 9000 mL/m2.day versus 4200 mL/m2.day for TSS. Additionally, the average daily thermal efficiency of TSS and CVTSS with jute cloth and nanocomposites was 33% and 50%, respectively. Finally, the proposed design is helpful in enhancing the performance of solar still without any extra horizontal spaces or components.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.csite.2021.101368
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