PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF ADVANCED SOLAR STILL INTEGRATED WITH HEATING COIL AND NANO PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL

Abstract

The increasing growth of industrialization and population has led to a global shortage of drinkable water, which has motivated researchers to find an alternate approach to supply this need. Solar stills (SSs) are solar-powered systems that can produce drinking water, although they have a low output problem. In present research work, two different types of SS- a conventional SS and an advanced SS have been studied. To enhance the yield (productivity) of advanced solar stills, an external condenser (EC), water heating coil, and Nano-phase change material (ZnO-PCM) have been used. Performance of conventional SS and advanced SS were compared in three different sets of investigation under the same climatological conditions. The maximum thermal efficiency and improved yield are obtained as 46% & 77%, 53% &119%, and 51% & 113% for ASS (heating coil), ASS-EC, and ASS-ZnO-PCM respectively. Thus, the productivity of ASS (heating coil) was enhanced by around 36% and 42% using ZnO-PCM and an EC, respectively. A study of economic analysis was conducted as well and observed that the desalinated freshwater's acquired prices were 0.030, 0.023, and 0.021 $/l for CSS, ASS-ZnO-PCM, and ASS-EC, correspondingly.