Assessing the Feasibility of a Novel Solar Still With Fins, Phase Change Materials, and Wick Materials for Sustainable Water Production

Abstract

This work aims to enhance the performance of square pyramid solar stills, both conventional (CPSS) and modified (MPSS), by using wick materials, namely, black cotton cloth and jute cloth. The MPSS features fins and paraffin wax as the phase change material within the basin. The performance of solar stills (SSs) is evaluated through productivity, energy, exergy, economic, and environmental analyses, with sustainability assessed based on the energy production factor and energy payback period. The results confirm an improvement of about 43.08%, 30.77%, 29.23%, 17.89%, and 6.15% in daily yield for MPSS+C, MPSS+J, MPSS, CPSS+C, and CPSS+J, respectively, in comparison to CPSS. MPSS+C shows the maximum energy and exergy improvement of 45.82% and 177.2%, respectively. Energy production factors range from 1.87 to 4.79, with energy payback periods between 0.21 and 0.53 years across six cases. Interestingly, the MPSS+C shows a reduction in cost per liter in productivity and payback period of 10.1% each, in comparison to CPSS. The MPSS+C shows an increase in carbon credits of about 43%, while reducing the CO₂ emission of 3.27 tons. The results also proved that the productivity of SS using cotton is 12.31% higher than that of jute.