Enhancement of integrated solar still using different new absorber configurations: An experimental approach

Solar stills yield only lower amount of fresh distillate, when compared to other conventional based desalination systems. In the present work, in an intention to increase the solar still productivity, a new hybrid solar desalination system was developed by combining an inclined solar still with a single basin solar still and hot water storage tank. This integrated system was fabricated and tested with different geometry of new absorber plate configurations (flat, grooved and fin shaped absorbers) under actual climatic conditions. The different new absorbers used in this experiment, increases the surface area of water available for evaporation inside the inclined still. In this experimental study, the integration of these stills was done to recover the waste heat energy from the un-evaporated output (hot waste water) drained from the inclined still. Based on the experimental analysis, it was observed that for the conventional inclined still, 25.75% productivity increased, when it is coupled with fin shaped absorber and 74.5% productivity increased, when it is integrated with basin still. The overall productivity (distillate output) in the integrated still with fin shaped absorber configuration was 5210 ml/day and the efficiency of the integrated desalination system with hot water thermal storage was 46.9%.