Thermal simulation of a modified solar desalination system with four transparent apertures with the aim of productivity augmentation

Abstract

In the current study, a passive single slope solar still with three transparent side glass walls (MS3) is theoretically studied. Each side glass wall, equipped with a collecting trough, acts as a condensing surface along with the top condensing cover. The results, validated acceptably against an experimental work in literature, show that MS3 can ameliorate the daily cumulative yield by 158% compared to conventional solar still (CSS) from which the top glass condensing cover, back glass wall, east glass wall and the west one have 43.96%, 25.97%, 15.17% and 14.90% contribution to fresh water production, respectively. Furthermore, the difference between temperatures of brackish water surface and condensing surface(s) is found higher for the case of MS3 than CSS and it justifies the reason behind higher productivity of MS3 than CSS. Moreover, it is observed that the proposed modification seems highly effective in reducing cost per liter of fresh water.