Natural and sustainable thermal storage solution for solar distillation system using sensible fiber material and latent PCM: Enhanced energy storage application

The current research work involves the design and performance assessment of a solar still, which is a conventional single-slope basin-type solar still (CSSBTSS) and a modified single-slope basin-type solar still (MSSBTSS) under the meteorological conditions of Solan city, Himachal Pradesh, India (30.90° N, 77.09° E). The individual and the combined effect of different sample quantities of sensible Himalayan Rambaan fibers (HRFs) and mass of latent paraffin wax (PW) A48 on the performance of MSSBTSS is evaluated and compared with CSSBTSS. The use of HRF material enhanced the evaporation rate significantly and improved the daytime distillates. Besides, different masses of latent PW filled inside the aluminum tubes improved the nocturnal distillates. For the analysis, three cases have been considered which are, namely: Case 1, solar still with sensible HRFs (MSSBTSS-HRF); Case 2, solar still with latent PW A48 (MSSBTSS-PW); and Case 3, solar still with sensible and latent material (MSSBTSS-HRF-PW). The results showed that the maximum thermal efficiency for Cases 1 and 2 was improved by 30.02% and 42.41% with five sample quantities of HRF material and 5000 g of PW. For Case 3, the maximum energy efficiency was 90.71% with a gain of 45.16% over CSSBTSS. The economic analysis concluded that the cost per liter of distillate yield produced using MSSBTSS-HRF-PW and CSSBTSS is ₹1.5 and ₹1.6, respectively. These outcomes showed the great potential of MSSBTSS-HRF-PW approach towards enhancing the overall performance and cost-effectiveness of solar still.