article · Case Studies in Thermal Engineering
Solar stills offer a strategy for tackling freshwater shortages, but standard designs often suffer from low output. This research evaluates modifications to a pyramid solar still to enhance its water production. The conventional flat absorber was replaced with a pyramidal absorber, expanding the evaporative surface area by approximately 40 percent. Different wick materials, specifically jute cloth and cotton, were evaluated over the absorber, alongside an external condenser and external mirrors to augment incoming solar energy. In addition, paraffin wax blended with silver nanoparticles served as a phase change material beneath the pyramidal absorber for thermal energy storage. Testing revealed that jute cloth outperformed cotton cloth during operation. The highest performance occurred when incorporating both external mirrors and a condenser, achieving a 142 percent increase in productivity and an overall distiller efficiency of 52.5 percent.
Many communities face acute freshwater shortages, making solar water purification an attractive, sustainable option. However, low daily yields have historically limited the widespread adoption of solar stills. Demonstrating that passive geometric changes, affordable wick materials, and external optical collectors can more than double fresh water output provides a viable route to developing higher-yield, decentralised water treatment units for water-stressed regions.
The findings are relevant to manufacturers and developers of decentralised solar desalination equipment for arid or off-grid areas. The study represents applied and tested experimental research. Moving toward commercialisation would require translating these bench-scale improvements, including the use of phase change materials and external condensers, into durable, low-cost manufactured products that maintain efficiency over extended operational lifespans.
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The countries suffer from the freshwater shortage. The solar still is one of the overcoming strategies, however its distillate production is limited. The present work introduces a different arrangement of modifying the pyramid solar still (PSS). This was conducted by changing the flat absorber to a pyramidal absorber to increase the vaporization surface area of distiller. Additionally, several wick materials made of jute cloth and cotton wick were placed over the pyramidal absorber under investigation. Besides, the performance of the modified pyramid solar still (MPSS) was studied when using external condenser and utilizing external mirrors to increase the input solar energy. Finally, a paraffin wax mixed with silver nanoparticles was used as a phase change material (PCM) under the pyramidal absorber of MPSS to be tested. The results revealed that using the modified absorber increased the evaporative surface area of MPSS by around 40%. Also, using the jute cloth material is suggested to be used instead of cotton cloth for the MPSS due to its better operation. Additionally, the best performance of MPSS was obtained with mirrors and condenser, where the productivity improvement and distiller efficiency were 142% and 52.5%.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.csite.2022.102515
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