| Clean water is important for our health and well being. The supply of drinking water is very limited in countries like Saudi Arabia which receive limited rainfall and the useable surface water is scarce. Hence, desalination is practiced in large amounts using non renewable energy sources such as oil/diesel and around 70% of the Kingdom's drinking water requirement is met by this process. Since the use of oil/diesel is a costly process and is also not environment-friendly, therefore there is a need to focus on renewable energy for water desalination as in this research.;In this research, an experimental investigation was carried out to examine the effect of critical parameters on the performance of a solar still. Outdoor experiments were carried out at latitude of 26° N in summer and winter seasons for Saudi Arabian climatic conditions. Various glass slope angles (25°, 30°, 35°, and 40°) and water depths (1 cm, 2 cm, and 3 cm) were tested. The best glass slope angle was found to be 35° while 1 cm water depth gave the best results for both the seasons. Since the productivity of a solar still is low in winter, an attempt is made to enhance the productivity of solar still by using external mirrors which reflect extra radiation onto the solar still. With the addition of external mirrors, the productivity was found to enhance by 82% in winter.;A mathematical model was also developed based on the thermodynamic and energy balance equations for the solar still. Simulations were carried out for all the cases to validate the experimental results. It was found that the experimental and numerical results were in good agreement with each other with an error of 5--10%. |
