Improving the basin type solar still performances using a vertical rotating wick

In the present work, an attempt is made to enhance the productivity of the conventional basin type solar still using a Vertical Rotating Wick (VRW). A rotating black wick belt is integrated against the still back-wall to act as an additional collector-evaporator area. A set of experimental tests was conducted to evaluate the VRW contribution in improving the still performances. The still productivity improvement is demonstrated through a comparative study with and without VRW in the still. It was found that the daily productivity of the proposed solar still, for winter and summer seasons, is about 5.03 kg/m(2) and 7.17 kg/m(2), respectively. The comparison with the simple solar still (without VRW) shows that the distillate output of the modified still (with VRW) was increased by about 14.72 in summer and by 51.1% in winter.