Experimental study of solar still augmented with low-cost energy absorbing and releasing materials

A series of experiments were carried out using conventional solar still, modified solar stills with stone chips (MSS1), sand stones (MSS2), and calcium oxide (MSS3) for the period of May 2016-Apr 2017. It was found that the distillate productivity increased in all the three versions of modified solar still (MSS). The use of heat of reaction between calcium oxide and water to preheat inlet water resulted in the increase of average distillate productivity by 26.98% as compared to conventional solar still. The results show that MSS3 gave the best result in terms of distillate productivity and payback period.