Enhancement of Conventional Solar Still Productivity by Modifying with The Tilted Wick at Different Angles and Black Painted Basin: An experimental & Economic Approach

Abstract

Solar still is the emerging technique to distilled water at places where there is a huge scarcity of drinking water. The current investigation deals with the productivity enhancement of distilled yield of conventional solar still (CSS) to obtain decontaminated fresh water. Experiments were conducted by modifying CSS for five different cases viz: (a). Conventional solar still without the wick, (b). Conventional solar still with the tilted wick at 15˚, 30˚, and 45˚ (c). Black painted basin conventional solar still (BPBCSS) with the tilted wick at 30˚. All experiments were performed on the month of March for approximate same climatic condition. From the preliminary investigation, the flow rate of basin water on the wick was kept fixat 0.2g/m2.secin such a way that the wick remained completely wet. The overall daily productivity of the caseswas found to be 3.802kg/m2, 3.925kg/m2, 4.25kg/m2,4.102kg/m2, and 4.372 kg/m2 for CSS without the wick, CSS with the tilted wick at 15˚, CSS with the tilted wick at 30˚, CSS with the tilted wick at 45˚, and BPBCSS with the tilted wick at 30˚ respectively. For BPCSS, the cost of the obtained yield distillate was found to be ₹1.38 per Liter, making it more affordable than CSS.