Energy Conversion and Management 44 (2003) 14111418

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Experimental study of a solar still with sponge cubes in basin

Bassam A/K Abu-Hijleh *, Hamzeh M. Rababah
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), P.O. Box 3030, Irbid 22110, Jordan Received 27 March 2002; accepted 10 July 2002

Abstract The performance of a solar still with dierent size sponge cubes placed in the basin was studied experimentally. The increase in distillate production of the still ranged from 18% to 273% compared to an identical still without sponge cubes under the same conditions. The eects of sponge cube size, percent volume of sponge, water depth, water salinity and the use of black coal and black steel cubes were also investigated. The study showed that the daily production of such a still can be greatly enhanced using sponge cubes. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Solar still; Experimental; Sponge

1. Introduction The use of solar stills as a cheap and easy method for providing clean water dates back to the 16th century. A resurgence of interest has occurred recently with work focused on methods for increasing the still eciency and production rate. The main focus for achieving high eciency was the temperature dierence between the water in the basin and the glass cover and/or reduction of heat lost to the surroundings. Several improvements have been proposed, such as the use of dye [1], an external condenser [2], distillate condensation on the back of a at plate solar collector [3], lm cooling [4] and screen placement in the basin [5]. Each method has some drawbacks, namely the eects of the dye on distillate quality, the need for an electrical power supply, low production rate, the need for a pump with ow control and the issue of screen rusting, respectively.

Corresponding author. Tel.: +962-2-7095111x22640; fax: +962-2-7095018. E-mail address: bassam@just.edu.jo (B.A/K. Abu-Hijleh).

0196-8904/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 9 6 - 8 9 0 4 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 6 2 - 0

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The current work focused on placing sponge cubes in the basin water in order to increase the wetted surface area in contact with the hot air inside the still. The small openings in the sponge cubes also reduces the surface tension between the water molecules, thus making it easier for the water molecules to evaporate. The presence of sponge cubes also suppresses heat transfer convection currents in the basin that reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the basin. This reduces the heat transfer losses from the bottom of the still. The use of sponge cubes in the basin is a passive enhancement method and does not require frequent nor expensive maintenance once installed.

2. Experimental setup and procedure Fig. 1 shows a schematic of the still with sponge cubes used in the current study. Another still, identical to that in Fig. 1, but without sponge cubes in the basin, was used as a reference. The stills base measured 50 cm 50 cm. The glass inclination angle was 23. The experiments were performed during the months of September and October at the campus of the Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan. All experiments were started at 9 AM local time and lasted for six hours. In each experiment, the two stills were used, with and without sponge cubes. The still without sponge cubes was used as a reference to gauge the change in still performance due to the addition of the sponge cubes and will be referred to as the reference still hereafter. All results presented herein will be discussed in terms of the ratio of distillate production of the still with sponge cubes to that of the still without sponge cubes at the end of the each experiment. This ratio will be referred to as the production ratio hereafter. This was very important, since the experiments were conducted outdoors, and thus, the solar and ambient conditions could not be controlled or repeated from one experiment to another. Thus, no solar isolation measurements were made nor included in this paper. The use of a reference still negated the eect of changes in solar and ambient conditions. This facilitated the comparison between the dierent still cong-

Fig. 1. Side view schematic of the solar still with sponge cubes.

B.A/K. Abu-Hijleh, H.M. Rababah / Energy Conversion and Management 44 (2003) 14111418 Table 1 Parameters studied Basin water depth D (cm) 3.0 5:0 7.0 9.0 Length of the side of sponge cube L (cm) 4.0 6:0 8.0 Volume of sponge cubes to that of the basin water (%) 10:0 20.0 40.0

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Material and color of Salinity of basin cubes used water (ppm) Yellow sponge Black steel Black coal Black sponge 500 15 000 35 000

urations tested even though the experiments were conducted at dierent days under dierent conditions. The experimental study focused mainly on the ratio of the overall distillate production of the still with sponge cubes to that of the reference still. Other parameters that might aect the productivity of the still, such as the presence and thickness of insulation material around the basin, were not studied. The eect of insulation has been well documented in the literature [13] and was not repeated in the current work. The glass, basin water and basin temperatures, as well as the accumulated distillate, were measured every half hour during each experiment for both stills. This data was intended for comparison with a proposed mathematical model for the still with sponge cubes. Table 1 lists the dierent parameters studied. When studying the eect of a given parameter, the other parameters were xed at a reference value. The reference value for each parameter is in bold text in Table 1. The main characteristics of the sponge cubes used were: yellow in color, density of 51 kg/m3 and void fraction of 88%. When using all the reference parameters above, approximately 20% of the height of the sponge cubes was above the basin water level.

3. Results and discussion Fig. 2 shows the change in production ratio as a function of basin water depth in the presence of sponge cubes. In general, the production ratio increased with basin water depth. The exception was at the largest depth used, 9 cm. Increasing the basin water depth reduces the height of the sponge that is exposed above the water surface. The shorter the height, the more water will rise to the top of the sponge by capillary forces, thus increasing the evaporation rate. At the largest basin water depth, there was no change in the portion of the sponge above the water level, thus the capillary forces at depths 7 and 9 cm were the same. Recalling that the experiments were performed over a 6 h period, the slight reduction in the production ratio could be attributed to the higher thermal capacity when using a depth of 9 cm. Fig. 3 shows the change in the production ratio as a function of the size of the sponge cubes used. Recall that changing the size of the cube was accompanied by a change in the number of cubes in order to maintain the relative volume of the sponge cubes to that of the basin water at the reference value of 10%, as per Table 1. Increasing the size of the sponge cube results in two opposing eects. A larger cube results in an increase in the portion of the cube above the basin water level. This reduces the ability of the capillary forces to raise the basin water through the

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Fig. 2. Change in production ratio as a function of basin water depth.

Fig. 3. Change in production ratio as a function of sponge cubes size.

height of the sponge for it to reach the top of the sponge, where it will evaporate. Also the total size of the wetted area of the sponge, composed of the topside as well as the perimeter above the basin water level, is inversely proportional to the size of the cube. This also reduces the evaporation area available from the sponge cubes. Thus, from these arguments, increasing the size reduces the production ratio. On the other hand, the use of large size cubes, with its low thermal capacity and low thermal conductivity, results in larger areas of high temperature localized zones

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where evaporation is enhanced. The temperature of the sponge cubes increases faster than that of the surrounding basin water. The change in the production ratio is the net eect of these two opposing eects. From Fig. 3, it is seen that the used sponge cube with 6 cm sides resulted in the maximum increase in production ratio, given the opposing eects of the size of the sponge cubes. Fig. 4 shows the change in the production ratio as a function of the percentage volume of the sponge cubes relative to the volume of basin water. Increasing the volume ratio, while using the same size sponge cubes, is achieved by an increase in the number of cubes used. This translates into an increase in the wetted sponge surface area from which evaporation can occur. This indicates that an increase in the volume ratio should translate into an increase in the production ratio. On the other hand, the yellow color of the sponge cubes reects some of the incident radiation onto the side walls of the still. This increases the heat loss from the side walls to the ambient, thus reducing the production ratio. The net eect of these two opposing eects is what is seen in Fig. 4. Fig. 5 shows the change in the production ratio as a function of the salinity of the basin water. The salinity values used 500, 15 000 and 35 000 ppm, are intended to simulate fresh, brackish and sea water, respectively. As the salinity of the basin water increases, its density increases and its vapor pressure decreases [6]. The increase in density and reduction in vapor pressure reduce the eectiveness of the capillary forces in raising the basin water to the top of the sponge cubes where it will evaporate. Thus, the use of sponge cubes is not as eective in increasing the production ratio in saline water as it is in fresh water. Cubes made from black steel, black coal, and black spray painted sponge were used in place of the yellow sponge cubes to study their eects on the production ratio. The results can be seen in Fig. 6. Black colored material tends to be better than materials with other colors in absorbing the incident radiation then transferring it to the basin water. Steel cubes increased the production

Fig. 4. Change in production ratio as a function of volumetric ratio of sponge cubes to basin water.

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Fig. 5. Change in production ratio as a function of basin water salinity.

Fig. 6. Change in production ratio with material and color of cubes used.

ratio more than coal cubes did. This could be attributed to the higher thermal conductivity of steel. This means that the steel cubes were more ecient in transferring the energy they absorbed to the basin water than the coal cubes. Still the yellow sponge cubes were more eective in increasing the production ratio than both black steel and coal cubes. This is due to the capillary forces that exist in the voids of the sponge cubes but not in either of the steel or coal cubes. It was expected that the black sponge cubes would have a higher production ratio than the yellow cubes

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due to their higher ability to absorb incident radiation. Yet the results in Fig. 6 show that the yellow cubes were slightly better than the black sponge cubes. The black sponge cubes were obtained by spray painting some yellow cubes with black paint. It is possible that the spraying process blocked some of the voids in the sponge cubes, thus reducing the capillary forces in the black painted sponge cubes. The reduction in the capillary forces seems to have outweighed the increase in absorption of the incident solar radiation. Still, it is expected that if naturally black sponge cubes were to be used, they will yield a better production ratio than the yellow cubes used in these experiments. An attempt that was made to write a computer program to simulate the production of a solar still with sponge cubes was not successful. Many researchers used the equations of Malik [7] to simulate successfully the production from a simple solar still. Some of the equations reported by Malik [7] are empirical and were based on lumped formulation analysis using the average temperature of the basin water with no regard to the temperature gradient across the surface or in the depth of the basin water. A simple extension of these equations was attempted to see if the same equations can be used to simulate a still with sponge cubes. The extension focused on changing the evaporation coecient of the basin water to reect the increase in the surface area over which evaporation will occur and the reduction in water surface tension. Several modications were proposed for altering the value of the evaporation coecient but none resulted in an acceptable comparison with the experimental data. This could be attributed to the fact that the empirical equations cannot account for the temperature changes across the surface of the basin water due to the presence of the sponge cubes. Thus, a more detailed thermal analysis of the solar still with sponge cubes is needed.

4. Conclusions The improvement in solar still distillate production due to the use of several combinations of sponge cubes in the basin water were reported and discussed. The use of sponge cubes in the basin water resulted in a signicant improvement in still production, up to 273%. The sponge cubes increase the surface area over which water evaporation occurs. The optimal combination was: sponge cubes with 6 cm sides, 20% sponge to basin water volume ratio and 7 cm basin water depth. The sponge cubes were less eective as the basin water salinity increased. The sponge cubes were more eective than the use of cubes made from black steel or coal. The lumped formulation analysis previously used to simulate simple stills could not be extended to simulate a still with sponge cubes.

References
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[5] Abu-Hijleh B, Abu-Qudais M, Al-Khatteb S. Experimental study of a solar still with screens in basin. Int J Solar Energy 2001;21:25766. [6] Spiegler KS, El_Sayed YM. A desalination primer. Italy: Balaban Desalination Publications; 1994. [7] Malik M, Tiwari GN, Kumar A, Sodha M. Solar distillation. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press; 1982.