On the verification of the effect of water depth on the performance of basin type solar stills

Many experimental and numerical studies have been done on different configurations of solar stills to optimize the design by examining the effect of climatic, operational and design parameters on its performance. The majority of the investigators presented their results in scatter diagrams rather than correlations. One of the most important of the operational parameters that has received a considerable attention in the literature is the brine depth. A good number of the investigations on the effect of brine depth are cited in this study. For each of these studies, a correlation was developed from the data reported by each study. A concluding correlation from all brine depth data was developed. The correlation showed a decreasing trend in the productivity with the increase in the brine depth. An experimental study was subsequently conducted to verify this trend by an experimental investigation on a solar still that was constructed and tested with five different brine depths, namely 1, 4, 6, 8 and 10 cm. The present study validated the decreasing trend in productivity with the increase of brine depth and showed that the still productivity could be influenced by the brine depth by up to 48%. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.