EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON AN ELEVATED BASIN SOLAR STILL WITH INTEGRATED INTERNAL REFLECTORS AND INCLINED FINS

Many developing countries are increasingly involved in desalination of seawater. The usage of solar still for freshwater production in rural area is an ideal solution where there are no water and electrical supplies. Worldwide, there were many trials for increasing solar stills efficiencies. This study is an experimental work to assess the productivity of modified conventional solar stills. The modification includes redesigning and converting the conventional solar still to a solar still with an elevated basin where the internal reflectors and inclined fins were combination. In the modified design, the distillation basin has become higher than the still base by 30 cm and the condensation area increased by 82.4%. In addition, internal reflectors installed at the walls and base of the still in order to increase the solar radiation. Furthermore, inclined fins fixed with an angle of 45 degrees to the distillation basin, which helps to increase heat transfer area and acting as heat absorbent surfaces. The performance of the modified solar still was evaluated and compared with that of the traditional solar still by considering the effect of elevated basin still only, elevated basin solar still with reflectors and elevated basin solar still with the combination of internal reflector and inclined finned absorber. Results indicate an increase in the productivity by 28% when the elevated basin type solar still was used, 43% increase when the elevated basin with internal reflectors type of solar still were used and 59% increase when the elevated basin with the combination of internal reflector and inclined finned absorber were used.