Development and Evaluation of Single Slope Solar Still

Water is essential to life. The origin and continuation of mankind is based on water. The supply of drinking water is an important problem for the developing countries. Among the non-conventional methods to desalinate brackish water or seawater, is solar distillation. The solar still is the most economical way to accomplish this objective. Direct sunlight has been utilized long back for desalination of water. Solar distillation plants are used for supplying desalinated water to small communities nearby costal remote areas. If there is no sunshine the productivity almost zero for convectional basin type model. Suitable modification of solar still can produce high output using minimum areas of land and even in cloudy days. Experiments were conducted from 8 h to 18 h in the month of December. Solar radiation, relative humidity, ambient temperature, distillate output, basin, water, and cover glass temperatures were all measured for 30 min interval. The distilled water production rate performance (PRP) was analyzed. The highest rate of PRP was recorded between 11.30 h and 12.30 noon in all the solar stills studied.