Assessing the performance of concave type stepped solar still with brick, sand, and concrete pieces

ABSTRACT

The present investigation represents the effect of heat storage material on the performance of concave type stepped solar still. The performance of proposed still is tested by varying the weight proportion of heat storage materials. The experiment was conducted initially without any heat-storing material and thereafter with bricks, sand and concrete pieces with an objective to enhance the productivity of solar still during night hours. The present research reveals 12 kg of concrete pieces provides higher distillate output of 4062 ml/day including 435 ml during night hours. Concrete pieces are found to be apt heat-storing material as its performance is 11.16% & 7.37% higher than that of brick and sand pieces, respectively. The highest overall efficiency of 28.27% is achieved with concrete pieces. This paper is addressed to the investigators involved in the field of heat storage materials and desalination technology.

KEYWORDS:

• Concave type stepped solar still
• distillate output
• heat-storing material
• overall efficiency

Acknowledgements

Authors are grateful to Dr Kiran Shahapurkar for the valuable discussion during the preparation of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).