PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT OF WATER OUTPUT VIA LATENT HEAT STORAGE SYSTEM WITH SINGLE SLOPE SOLAR STILLS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to design, build, and assess the performance of a latent heat storage system in tandem with a single slope solar still. Using a solar accumulator to transfer hot water to a shell and a spiral finned tube filled with 30 kg of paraffin wax — 1.2 wt.% of Al2O3 nanocomposites, latent heat was stored. To test the effect of the storage system’s performance, two trials were conducted, with and without storage, under as similar of conditions as could be arranged. The pro-posed storage system design eliminates any potential issues with usage of paraffin wax as the storage system in conjunction with the solar still. An outcome indicated that daily fresh water output was enhanced by 4.63% when the solar still was used in conjunction with the storage system.