A new hybrid desalination system using wicks/solar still and evacuated solar water heater

This paper presents a new hybrid desalination approach comprising of evacuated solar water heater, jut geotextile and solar still. An evacuated solar water heater is integrated with the desalination stills to evaluate the continuity production of distillate. Two identical portable solar wick and one basin solar stills were designed to evaluate the systems performance. Jut linen woven fabrics were stitched to the plane wick (lengthwise and crosswise) and integrated with solar still. The jut fabrics were used to reduce the rate of water flow to the appropriate rate. The following variables are studied: Single and double layers wick; plane wick, lengthwise and crosswise linen; feeding hot water during night and two base slope angles of wick still (20 and 30 degrees). Theoretical analysis is verified through experiments. Water productivity is increased by 114% over conventional still for double layer square wick (DLSW) solar still at 30 degrees base slope angle. The daily average efficiency of DLSW was 71.5%. During experimentation, the distillate water productivity increased by 215% when hot brackish water was fed during night time. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.