An experimental investigation to optimize the production of single and stepped basin solar stills-a Taguchi approach

Solar stills are widely used to produce potable water in arid and semi-arid regions. Modifications in the conventional solar stills - internal or external or both - were attempted by the researchers to enhance the productivity. In this study, an attempt was taken to incorporate four internal modifications (parameters) in single basin and stepped basin solar stills to maximize the production. The four parameters (modifications) selected for the study were - basin liner design, heat storage material, wick material, and basin water depth. The objective of the study was to identify the combination of parameters levels that maximize the distillate production in single basin and stepped basin solar stills by applying Taguchi technique. The selected four parameters and their best three levels were combined as per L-9 orthogonal array and from the experimental result, the S/N ratio for each parameter level was calculated. The parameter levels corresponding to the maximum S/N ratio were selected and incorporated in the stills to redesign the single basin and stepped basin still in accordance with Robust design. The single basin and stepped basin solar stills designed as per Taguchi technique produced 175.2% and 132.2%, respectively, higher distillate production than the conventional single basin and stepped basin stills.