Factors affecting solar stills productivity and improvement techniques: A detailed review

The worldwide request for portable water is continuously growing because of industrial, population and agricultural growth, the result is water leaks that have already reached serious amounts in many places of the world. To overcome this problem, there is a demand for some supportable sources for the water purification. Solar still is a valuable device that can be used for purifying of brackish and salt water for drinking purposes. In this article, a review of factors affecting solar still production (climatic conditions, operations and design parameters) and enhancement techniques (wicks, internal and external condensers, internal and external reflectors, phase change materials, Stepped solar still and a new method improved the solar still yield by using nanoparticles) has been argued. Using sponge cubes in the basin water caused a significant enhancement in solar still production (up to 273%) whereas using cuprous oxide nanoparticles increased the distilled yield by 133.64% and 93.87% with and without the fan respectively. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.