Journal of Research in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics ISSN: 3107-4510 (Online)

Authors: Dr.Suresh P.R., Jyothisankar P.R., Varun Krishnan R., Sanish P.C., Nimya Manoharan T.

Abstract: Today there is acute shortage of fresh drinking water in remote, coastal and rural areas of many countries. The only nearly inexhaustible source of water is the oceans. Their main drawback, however, is their high salinity. Therefore, it would be attractive to tackle the water-shortage problem with desalination of this water.
In the present work, effect of incorporating phase change material and fins on the performance of a single slope solar still is investigated. Experiments were performed on the still with and without incorporating fins. Daily yields of the still with and without fins were compared. It was observed that still daily yield was improved with the incorporation of fins. Energy and exergy analyses had also been carried out to assess the still’s performance by incorporating fins. It was observed that, the daily thermal and exergy efficiencies of the still were increased with fins.
The efficiencies of the simple still and still with fins are found to be 21.26% and 22.26% respectively. The efficiency is increased by 4.70% with fins. Total yield of simple still and still with fins were found to be 1960 ml/m2day and 2052 ml/m2day.
Daily exergy efficiencies of the simple still and still with fins are 1.24% and 1.47% respectively. Exergy efficiencies of the still are very low compared to the energy efficiencies.
As the water depth increases, yield decreases. The reason may be the storage of more heat energy is required for the evaporation. But too low water depths are also not appreciable due to the reason that salt accumulation decreases evaporation rate. Optimum water depth is found to be 2cm from the experiments.

Keywords: Solar Still, Fins, Still with fins, Exergy efficiencies of the simple still.