A SIMPLE ANALYSIS OF SOLAR DESALINATION OF SEAWATER

A tilted solar still has been studied in application to desalinate the seawater. It essentially consists of a flat, blackened, tilted surface with a transparent glazing as a covering. The seawater trickles down as a thin film over the absorber and is heated by solar energy. The water vapor that evaporates from the liquid film is condensed on the under side of the glass cover and the fresh water flows along the glass surface by gravity into troughs. A simple expression is derived in this paper by using approximations to estimate the mass of fresh water evaporated from the seawater as a function of climatic conditions and initial condition of the seawater through a simplified vapor pressure correlation.