Effect of the condenser type and the medium of the saline water on the performance of the solar still in hot climate conditions

This paper presents an experimental work to study the effect of the condenser and the medium of saline water types on the performance of the solar still. Single slope solar still facing the south is used in this work. Also, four types of the condenser are tested: (i) glass, (ii) aluminum plate, (iii) aluminum heat sink with pin fins, and (iv) aluminum plate covered with an umbrella. Moreover, four mediums of the saline water inside the basin are examined: (i) only saline water in the basin, (II) Layers of black steel fibers in the basin, (iii) saturated sand with saline water, and (iv) mixture of sand and black steel fibers saturated with saline water. The solar still of only glass walls and only saline water in the basin is taken as a reference case. The performance of the other cases is referred to the reference case. The results indicate that using heat sink condenser increases the temperature of the saline water. Also, it increases the temperature difference between the condenser and the saline water relative to using glass condenser. Also, using a glass condenser with black steel fibers inside the water basin increases the daily productivity of freshwater by 35%. Using the heat sink condenser increases the daily productivity from 31% in the case of using only saline water to 52% in the case of using black steel fibers in the basin. Using an umbrella of 20 cm wide at the top of the aluminum plate condenser decreases the daily productivity by 26%. Increasing the umbrella wide to 40 cm decreases the daily productivity by 31%.