Experimental Investigation and Performance Analysis of Single Slope Solar Still

Abstract

Abstract -

Shortage of good drinking water supply is one of the major challenges facing the global community especially developing and under developed countries, like Nigeria. However, these challenges can be overcome through the use of solar stills for water distillation which is considered as a viable option for converting dirty water to distillate. The solid particles (dissolved minerals) which were left behind at the basin during the distillation process gradually accumulated and cause basin corrosion and/ or low yield, in order to have a sustainable and working solar distillation technology, this paper presents an experimental investigation and performance analysis of single slope solar stills of identical size (0.35 m²). The stills includes; still D₁, (conventional with galvanized iron basin), still D₂, (galvanized iron basin with 4inch hand hole attached at the side), still D₃,(conventional with blacked ceramic basin), and still D₄, (Ceramic basin with 4 inch hand hole attached at the side). The result obtained show that stills D₁, and D₂ with galvanized iron basin revealed higher productivity of 580ml/day and 510ml/day respectively, compared to stills D₃, and D₄, which have 340ml/day and 315ml/day respectively. Further results indicate that still D1 with galvanized iron at the basin and hermetic seal has greater efficiency and distillate productivity of 54.06 % compared to stills D2, D3 and D4 which have daily efficiency and productivity of 50.91 %, 28.20 %, and 27.97 % respectively. This however, indicates that the adoption of 4 inch hand hole in solar still design can help in reducing the particles deposits at the basin to minimize basin corrosion.