Productivity enhancement of single slope solar still using immersion-type water heater and external cooling fan during summer

Abstract: In this paper, an attempt is made to study the productivity enhancement of a single-slope solar still using an immersion-type water heater and external cooling fan. Experiments were carried out at KFUPM campus in Dhahran (26^o16′N Latitude and 50^o10′E Longitude) during the summer. A solar still with glass tilt angle of 35° and water depth of 1 cm was chosen in our study. The experimental results showed that the productivity increased by 250% when a water heater of 500 W capacity was used in the base tank. An external cooling fan was used to cool the outer glass surface of the solar still and an increase in productivity by 5.2 and 10.3% was observed with wind speeds of 7 and 9 m/s, respectively. The energy and mass balance equations were used to numerically study the effect of water heater and external cooling fan and were validated with the experimental results. It is found that there is a good match between the experimental and numerical results. The present study is partial implementation of the two patents in the field of solar distillation.