Theoretical and experimental validation of evacuated tubes directly coupled with solar still

Experimental study of evacuated tubes coupled solar still in the climatic conditions of Mehsana, a region of North Gujarat, India during summer and winter climate conditions has been made. Experimental setup was made by authors. Fourteen double-walled hard borosilicate glass tubes have been used. Evacuated tubes were inclined at angle of 45° from horizontal. Outer tubes of evacuated tubes were transparent, inner tubes were coated with a selective coating of Al-Ni/Al compound for better solar radiation absorption and minimum emittance. It has been shown that evacuated tube attachments to the solar still increased the water temperature inside the solar still for increment in the generation of distillate output. Evacuated tubes coupled solar still is not only produce distilled water during sunshine hours, but also off-sunshine hours due to heat storage effect. For the validation of the experimental results, a theoretical model is proposed based on the fundamentals of heat and mass transfer equations for solar still glass cover, water in basin and basin bottom. Two main statistical parameters—root mean square error and mean bias error—were calculated to compare the results of experiments and theoretical analysis. Closed matching of the experimental and theoretical results has been found. © 2016, Pleiades Publishing, Inc.