Novel Solar Distillation Dome: New Approach for Sustainable Freshwater Production Augmentation

Enhancing the evaporation rates of the solar distillers through the implementation of an innovative solar distillation dome could present a cost-effective and efficient strategy to optimize the distillate output of traditional solar distillers. This study introduces an efficient design and numerical modeling of a unique solar distillation dome featuring a spiralcoil basin coupled with an evacuated-tube solar collector to increase evaporation rates inside the distillatory basin and consequently enhance the distilled yield. Additionally, a phasechange material is incorporated into the spiral-coil basin to extend the distiller's nightly productivity. A thorough theoretical modeling is performed to assess the technical feasibility and freshwater production of the modified solar distillation dome (SDD) under the harsh conditions in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Energetic and exergetic analyses of the designed solar distillation dome are carried out, focusing on freshwater product, daily energetic efficiency, and daily exergetic efficiency. The results indicated that the solar distillation dome achieves a daily distillation yield of 10.77 kg/m2. Furthermore, the daily energy and exergy efficiencies of the newly designed solar distillation dome are determined to be 74.33% and 8.32%, respectively. This indicates that the proposed solar distillation dome represents an efficient design configuration, delivering a significant volume of distilled water while optimizing the energy and exergy performance of solar purification systems.