Performance evaluation of modified wick belt configuration in rotating wick solar stills using different wick materials

IF 5.1 3区工程技术 Q2 ENERGY & FUELS

Thermal Science and Engineering Progress Pub Date : 2025-03-01 DOI:10.1016/j.tsep.2025.103457

Gokulnath R, E. Sam Elijah, Rohinikumar Bandaru

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Desalination is the process of removing dissolved salts from saline water. In this work, experimental investigations were conducted on different single slope rotating wick solar stills (RWSS) for improved performance. Water evaporation test was conducted to select the suitable wick materials for the system and the selected wick materials were subjected to water absorption and characterization study. The experiments were conducted on solar still with two different wick configurations, namely, LC rotating wick solar still (LCRWSS) and newly established inclined rotating wick solar still (IRWSS) with different wick materials, and solar still without wick (SSWW). The effect of glass cooling and external reflectors on the performance of the still were also studied. The maximum productivity and efficiency of the system were obtained for jute fabric as the wick material. The daily thermal efficiencies of LCRWSS and IRWSS, with jute wick, are 52.8 % and 57.3 % respectively which are higher than the efficiency of solar still without wick (SSWW), whose efficiency is 22.7 %. IRWSS has more productivity as well as efficiency than LCRWSS for all the wick materials considered. The efficiency of IRWSS increased to 63.8 % with the incorporation of external reflectors. The maximum efficiency of 74.3 % is obtained for IRWSS with reflectors and glass cooling. The contribution to productivity was found to be maximum by the top glass of the still compared to other sides. The distillate cost per litre obtained for SSWW and IRWSS are 0.094 $ and 0.0547 $, respectively.

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来源期刊

Thermal Science and Engineering Progress Chemical Engineering-Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes

CiteScore

7.20

自引率

10.40%

发文量

327

审稿时长

41 days

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