Performance Evaluation of Passive Solar Water Distillation System with Separate Surface Condenser and Vacuum Pump

The world is facing scarcity of fresh water. Access to potable water for the people is narrowing and declining. Now days, pollution created by manmade activities, results in problem of water paucity. Solar energy with eco-friendly and cost effective and has become more popular for water purification. Efforts are made by researchers to develop water purification plants for small scale as well as large scale applications. Water purification by distillation process without consuming electricity can be achieve by solar still .More rigorous attempts are needed to enhance performance of the solar still for sustainable water purification. Many researchers experimentally studied solar water distillation either using condenser or vacuum tubes. Hence present work aims to develop solar water distillation system with combination of surface condenser and vacuum pump. Performance of solar stills having 20 mm water level in the copper basin is tested and compared with analytical results. The experimental study has been carried out to evaluate glass and basin temperature which increases by 2 to 4 0C with respect to analytical. Also investigation results show that, the daily distillate output increases up to 43% by coupling surface condenser and vacuum pump due to increase in rate of evaporation and condensation.