Impacts of Adding Porous Media and Phase Change Material on Performance of Solar Water Distiller System Under Iraq Climatic Condition: An Experimental Study

Abstract

This current investigation involves an experimental inspection of adding porous medium and phase change material (PCM) above the absorber surface to enhance the performance of a single slope and single basin solar water distiller system. To demonstrate the effectiveness of adding porous medium and PCM, the performance of the modified system and conventional system is compared under similar operating conditions. The system that uses porous medium and PCM is called MSS-FPP, whereas the conventional system is called MSS-F. Rectangular fins are fixed above the absorber plate for both models. For MSS-FPP model, three different types of porous medium (stones, nuts, and black glass balls) are used in addition to paraffin wax filled inside circular tubes as a PCM. The data are collected in November and December 2023 in Mosul City, Iraq. The experiments are carried out under different water depths. The findings confirm that the performance of MSS-FPP model is better than MSS-F model by 41.32% (for water depth 3 cm) and 30.61% (for water depth 5 cm). The results also indicated that the water productivity of MSS-FPP model is higher than MSS-F model by 41.67% (for water depth 3 cm) and 30.65% (for water depth 5 cm). For MSS-FPP model, the maximum water productivity and efficiency are obtained when using black glass balls as compared to nuts and stones types, where the highest water temperature and water productivity values are found equal 54°C and 1.01 kg/m² for water depth 3 cm. The enhancement in the performance of modified solar water distiller system (MSS-FPP) shows that using a porous medium and PCM has considerable impacts on the evaporation rate, heat exchange, and rate of heat transfer.