Effect of Double Basin on Productivity Enhancement of Solar Still Coupled with Evacuated Glass Tubes with Sun tracking

Abstract

There is an urgent need of clean, pure drinkable water. Often water sources are brackish and or contain
harmful bacteria and therefore cannot be used for drinking. Pure water is also needful in some industries, hospitals and
schools. Distillation is one of many processes that can be used for water purification. Solar radiation can be used as the
source of heat energy. The experiments were conducted on both single double basin stills under local climatic conditions.
The observations of the days with the average radiation conditions were considered for analysis. Totally, 20
combinations of readings were taken in solar still by varying water depth, water sample, absorbing material, double
basin and solar tracking. The proposed model can accurately predict the distillate yield for a double basin evacuated
solar desalination system operating at high temperatures. Depending upon the weather conditions the wind speed is
variedfrom0.13 to 1.81 m/s and the ambient temperature is varied from27 to45 °C at different days and solar intensity is
varied from30 to1100 W/m2
during day time. The main objective of this research study is to effectively utilize the solar
water heater for solar still productivity enhancement, which works as a hybrid system. The experimental setup was
designed and installed at solar lab MBM Engineering College. Experiments were conducted simultaneously on both stills
for the same basin condition solar lab (26° 27′N, 73° 04′E) Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India during the months of May – June
2013. The major element of the experimental setup active solar still coupled with evacuated tubes.