Performance comparison of solar stills with different fin materials coupled with PCM energy storage

Abstract

Low productivity is a major issue to be addressed in solar still which is considered to be an economical and viable gadget used to convert brackish water into potable water in remote and rural regions of developing countries. In the present work, an attempt has been made to improve the productivity of solar still by incorporating fins and energy storage materials. Two identical single slope single basin solar stills were fabricated with an effective basin area of 0.5 m2(1000 mm x 500 mm) and glazing inclination of 120with the horizontal. Experiments were conducted to compare the performance of conventional solar still with finned solar still attached with paraffin wax as phase change material (PCM). Two different materials; Galvanized iron and Aluminium were used to fabricate the basin and tubular fins. The experimental results showed that the productivity and the daily efficiency of the solar still with fins and energy storage were higher compared to solar still with mere fins and solar still with mere energy storage. Further, solar still with Aluminium fins exhibited superior performance compared to the solar still with galvanized iron fins.