Design and performance analysis of a slanting-type solar water distillation kit

Abstract

Access to safe and pure water to communities is becoming an increasingly difficult issue around the world. The rapid international developments, the industrial growth, agricultural and population explosion all over the world have resulted in a large scale escalation of demand for fresh water. The solar still is the most economical way to accomplish this objective. We fabricated a slanting-type solar water distillation kit which was tested outdoor under the actual meteorological conditions of Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria. The system includes four major components; a wooden basin of surface area 0.16 m2, an absorber surface, a slanting glass roof and a condensate channel. Very cheap locally available materials were used to fabricate the solar still. The solar still produced an average of 0.09 m3 of distilled water per day, and this study was performed in the month of November, 2015. Daily efficiencies of the distillation kit were estimated and the overall efficiency of the kit was found to be 7.7%. We employed correlation analysis to estimate the relationship between such parameters like ambient temperature, internal temperature of the kit, daily distillate yields and daily efficiencies.