DESIGN, THERMAL ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF EFFECT OF SLOPE OF GLASS ON PERFORMANCE OF SOLAR STILL

Abstract

Now-a-days, encountering with lack of potable water is one of the major problems in developing as well as
under-developed countries. There is a lot of saline water in earth hence to solve problem of potable water, the saline
water needs to be converted into potable water. A device, which converts saline water into drinkable water, is called
solar still. Solar still is a device which uses process of solar distillation. Solar distillation method is an easy, small
scale and cost-effective technique for providing drinking water. It requires an energy input as heat and the solar
radiation can be the source of energy. In every efficient solar still design, water temperature, distillate output, and
difference between water temperature and inner glass cover temperatures are very important. Many scientists of world
have worked on solar still to increase the output. There are different types of solar still designs available with different
mechanical structures and performance characteristics including single slope solar still, hemispherical solar still,
pyramid solar still, double slope solar still and so on.
In this thesis, the main aspect of research is focusing on single slope solar still with single basin along with its design,
requirements of components, implementation and analysis of the effect of slope of glass on performance of this design
in providing drinking water from saline water. In this work, an attempt is made to develop the experimental setup to
perform experiments on solar still having movable slope. Proper insulation and sealing is ensured to trap the heat in
the basin without any leakage of water and heat. In-depth study of literature is done on the basis of different types of
solar still, simulation done as well as designing done on them. Based on the literature, it has been decided to develop
the experimental setup of single basin solar still with adjustable/ changeable slope with some modification for
experimentation considering different slope angles to check effect on temperature and efficiency of solar still. An
attempt will be made for experimental evaluation and cfd analysis at different slope angles to find the angle of slope at
which the efficiency is more.