Session 2.14.

1401

PERFORMANCE STUDY OF SOLAR STILLS

H.A. Sharif, L.I. Kiss

Technical University Budapest
Institute of Thermal and Systems
Engineering

ABSTRACT
The daily fresh-water production of a solar still is determined
by a numerical simulation procedure applied to a desktop com­
puter. The mathematical model can take into account all the
significant parameters in solar still design as various materi­
al properties, changing meteorological conditions, geometry etc.
The results meet experimental daily yields with a satisfactory
accuracy, that promises reliable application for practical de­
sign purposes.

INTRODUCTION
In several regions the increasing demand for potable water can
be met only by desalination of brackish or seawater. In devel­
oping countries desalination technologies with large, concen­
trated units can not arow fast due to high investment costs.
Desalination technologies with low cost installation, simple
operation, low maintenance can be competitive in case of dis­
tributed demand, in household applications.
The aim of work is to study the performance and economical as­
pects of solar stills with various design and materials. The
project includes the following parts:
1. A computerized numerical method has been worked out to sup­
port design work. The mathematical model is based on the nu­
merical solution of the nodal type set of energy balance equa­
tions; the equivalent conductances for radiation, convection,
filtration, evaporation etc. as well as moist air properties
and mass transfer coefficients are calculated by special sub­
routines .
2. Experimental work to identify unknown parameters in mathema­
tical model as well as for the direct testina of performance
under real conditions.
3. Development of design variants for solar still which meet
the requirement of serial production, reliable operation, low-
-maintenance.
1402 Session 2.14.

MODEL
The basic heat and mass transfer processes in the solar still
/Fig.l/ are modelled by nodal equations of the cover and basin.
The driving force of mass transfer within the solar still is
the temperature difference between the water in the basin and
that of the cover. These temperatures reach their equilibrium
values when the corresponding net energy fluxes due to radia­
tion, convection, conduction and condensation/evaporation are
equal to zero. The effect of mass transfer on the thermal equi­
librium of the nodes is taken into account by forming equiva­
lent heat transfer coefficients, and summing them to the con-
vective heat transfer coefficients.
The corresponding equations for cover and basin are:

ViV^vvv-vvvv-^v*! 4 -^ 4 / = ° i1'
VlVVh12VT2-V-&12-V2/rr24-Tl4/+kVT2-V = 0 /2/

Fig.l. Schematic drawing of solar still

The nonlinear set of equations for T, and T 2 is solved by an
iterative method.
The heat transfer coefficient h, ~ consists of two parts cor­
responding to convection and evaporation/condensation heat
transport
h
12 " h12/conv./ + h12/evap./ /3/
Free convection heat transfer inside the enclosure is calcu­
lated by introducing a weighted average temperature represent­
ing the state of air above the basin /Fig.l/. Then from Ref[3,4]
from basin to air rQ 25]
= 1,32 /-£/ ' /laminar/ /4/
2aconv
1
3
tu2aconv = 1,43./ T/ /turbulent/ /5/
and for heat transfer from air to cover:
ô Ãè,25]
h
al = X ' 3 2 '"E''1 /laminar/ /6/

h., = 1,43 / T/ 3
al
/turbulent/ m
 Session 2.14. 1403

The overall convection heat transfer coefficient from basin wa­

ter surface to cover is then

12,conv. h0 A0 + h º Α 1 /0/
' 2a 2 al 1
To follow the energy transfer due to evaporation-condensation
we adopted the approach of Ref [5J, assuming the mass transfer
coefficients to be proportional to the convective heat transfer
coefficients.
The energy transported by the mass flow at evaporation
Q2 = A2r2 /9/
where
™2 = ^2*2 /^""air 7 /10/

analogously for condensation on cover

Q-L = m 1 r 1 /ll/

and ð^ = 6^ 1 A 1 /^air-x1/ I^H

From the Lewis equation Gf = /12/
Le c p
If the still is perfectly tight against mass transfer by filtra­
tion, then in steady-state m-, = m 9 , which is the yield of the
A
still.
The ÷-,,÷-,÷ moisture contents are calculated using the corres­
ponding temperatures of the basin, cover and air, using
formulae
x = 0.622 — /13/
P - Pw
assuming all three points lying on the saturation line, so
/25.14- 5096/
Pw = e * /14/

where we applied an approximation for the vapour tension curve.

The equivalent evaporation and condensation heat transfer coef­
ficients are formed by using the same temperature differences
for driving forces as they are at convection:
Ò
= 2
h /15/
2a,evap. V W

al,evap. A,/T /16/

j. a -T,
x /

h
12,evap. = A 0 h 0 +Á º h , ^17'
' ^ 2 2a,evap. 1 al,evap.
In calculation, of sky radiation, free or forced convection heat
transfer coefficients from outer surface of the still the ap­
proach and formulae from References [l], \l\ have been applied:
1404 Session 2.14.

0.0552x/T / Ref [l] /18/

sky ο
h = 5,7 + r,8 w 1 if 0 <w45 m/s 1191
0.8
7,6x/w/ 1 i f w y 5 m/s 1201
As the heat transfer coefficients are depending on temperatures
Ô-,,Ôñ indirectly, multiple iteration procedure was applied. The
architecture of the program is modular, making possible to re­
place modules computing the different parameters by others if
changes in geometry are to be taken into account.

SIMULATION

The program for solving the mathematical model has been worked
out for desktop computers. For a daily performance study the
hourly meteorological data are the input data for the main
program. The program was tested by using meteorological data
for Budapest, as for those conditions experimental data of so­
lar stills of various design are available for the sake of com­
parison .

8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 0
TIME IN HOURS

Fig.2. Productivity, temperatures for Budapest 17. July

RESULTS
To illustrate the output of the program in Figure 2. the tem­
perature histories of cover and basin together with the fresh
water production profile are presented. The case corresponds
to Hungarian geographic and meteorological conditions, for a
simple glass covered solar still without any heat recovery.
 Session 2.14. 1405

SUMMARY

A computer code has been developed and applied for the study of
the operation of solar stills. The method makes easy to analyze
the influence of various materials, sizes, geometry, changes in
transparency of cover or absorptivity of basin, as well as it
can quickly predict fresh water yield under various climatic
and geographic conditions.

NOMENCLATURE
a-. , a~ absorptivity of cover and basin respectively
A-, , A~ area of cover and basin respectively
h heat transfer coefficient on outer surface of cover
o
h.. 2 heat transfer coefficient between water and cover
h, ,hy free convection heat transfer coefficient from air to
cover and from basin to air respectively
I solar intensity on the plane of the cover
k conductive heat transfer coefficient
1 basin length
m.. ,m 9 mass of water-vapour from air to cover from water to
air respectively
P total pressure of moist air
p water vapour's partial pressure within air
qn,q9 energy transported during condensation, evaporation
respectively
r heat of evaporation of water
T ambient temperature ; T-. cover temperature
T2 water temperature ; T sky temperature
w wind velocity
x-, ,x . ,x~ absolute moisture content at Ô º ,Ô . ,T~ resp.
1 air 2 1 air 2 ^
£,,,£„ emissivities of cover and water respectively
g Stefan-Boltzmann constant
5^ mass transfer coefficient.

REFERENCES

1 S.A. Duffie, Vi.A. Beckman, /Solar energy thermal processes,

Wiley, New York /1974/.
2 I.F. Kreider, F. Kreith, Solar energy handbook,
McGraw Hill /1981/.
3 I. Holman, Heat Transfer, McGraw Hill, Kogakusha /1976/.
4 M. Ozisik, Basic Heat Transfer, McGraw Hill /1977/.
5 Tasnädi, Cs., Calculation of heat transport with material
transfer by analogy to heat exchangers dimensioning,
/in Hunqarian, English translation BNVJL-TR-218/,
Energia'és Atomtechnika 25 /6/, pp.252-258 /1972/.