Experimental Investigation Of The Performance Of Basin Type Single-Slope Solar Still

The supply of drinking water is a growing problem especially for developing countries. Solar stills have been considered as one of the viable options of converting brackish or dirty water into distil water. Basin water depth is one of the design and operating parameters that determines the performance of solar still. Therefore, three identical simple basin single slope solar stills A, B, and C were constructed and their performance was experimentally investigated under the same conditions at basin water depths of 5mm, 10mm and 20mm respectively. The distillate productivity, solar intensity, and the temperatures of the basin water, glass cover and the ambient of the three stills were measured and their relationships were investigated. The heat losses as well as the experimental and thermal efficiencies of the stills were estimated. The results reveal that still A demonstrates high performance followed by still B. This however indicates that the performance of a solar still is high at lower basin water depths.