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Article history:
Received 14 December 2012
Accepted 8 July 2013
Available online 31 July 2013
In this work, a vapor adsorption type solar still was designed, fabricated and tested at Thiagarajar College
of Engineering, Madurai, India. A vapor adsorbent pipe network comprising activated carbonemethanol
pair was integrated with the basin. Losses from the bottom of the still are considerably reduced due to
sensible heat absorption by the activated carbon and latent heat of vaporization by methanol. Also water
circulated through the inner tube of the adsorbent bed is used as a feed to basin, thus enhancing the
evaporation rate during day time. The increase in temperature of the basin due to adsorbent bed and
condensation of methanol vapor, augments the evaporation rate during the night time also. Sponges,
gravels, sand and black rubbers were used in the vapor adsorption type solar still for improving the yield.
Experimental results were compared with ordinary conventional basin type still. The governing energy
balance equations for both conventional and vapor adsorption type solar still were solved analytically
and compared with experimental results. Theoretical analysis gave very good agreement with experimental results.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Solar still
Vapor adsorption
Desalination
Efciency
Water purication
1. Introduction
As population of this planet has rapidly grown, we have
increasingly tapped deeper into our planets fresh water resources.
The trend of population growth is quite obvious. The availability of
water in sufcient quantities and quality is a challenge of signicant importance in many regions as it is scarce and unevenly
distributed resource. Water scarcity is a function of supply and
demand and an indicator of the gap between them.
The increased demand associated with uncontrolled development, inadequate management practices, overpopulation, mass
tourism, intensive agriculture, and over consumption results in a
complexity of interrelated problems affecting social, economic and
natural aspects of everyday life. As a result many regions are now in
a perpetual state of demand consistently exceeding supply.
Solar distillation extracts potable water from a salty or polluted
source using a simple process which is particularly well-suited for
use on small scale in remote or developing regions. Solar stills of
259
260
ItAb ab mb Cp; b
dTb
Qc; b-w Qloss
dt
(1)
For vapor adsorption solar still the energy balance equation can
be rewritten by including the sensible heat gain by the activated
carbon and latent heat gain by the methanol.
So Eq. (1) is modied as,
ItAb ab
dT
b
mmet hfg; met
mb Cp; b mact Cp; act
dt
Qc; b-w Qloss
(2)
Energy received by the saline water in the still (from sun and
base) is equal to the summation of energy lost by convective heat
transfer between water and glass, radiative heat transfer between
water and glass, evaporative heat transfer between water and glass
and sensible energy gained by the saline water. This can be written
as [5,7e9],
(3)
(4)
261
Pw Pg Tw 273:15 1=3
Tw Tg
268:9 103 Pw
(13)
Qr; w-g hr; w-g Aw Tw Tg
(14)
Initially water temperature, glass temperature and plate temperature were taken as ambient temperature and the change in
basin temperature (dTb), increase in saline water temperature (dTw)
and glass temperature (dTg) were computed for every time interval
(dt) of 5 s by solving Eqs. (1), (3) and (4) respectively in the case of
conventional still and the temperatures obtained by solving Eqs.
(2)e(4) respectively for vapor adsorption type solar still. For evaluation of above said temperatures in the simulation, the experimentally measured values of solar radiation and the ambient
temperature of the corresponding day and hour were used. This
iteration was performed for total duration from 9am to 5pm of a day.
The mass of water in the still was taken as 3.75 kg. The mass of
water equivalent to the condensate (mcon), was added every half an
hour and the constant level of water was maintained in the stepped
solar still. The area of saline water (Aw) was equal to area of the
basin. Mass of the glass (mg) was taken as 12.5 kg. The absorptivity
of the still, ab was taken [7,8] as 0.95. The absorptivity of the water,
aw and absorptivity of the glass, ag were taken as [7,8] 0.05.
For the next time step, the parameter was redened as,
where eff
Tw Tw dTw
(5)
he; w-g
Tg Tg dTg
(6)
The radiative heat transfer between glass and sky was given in
Refs. [5,7e9],
Tb Tb dTb
(7)
Qr; g-sky hr; g-sky Ag Tg eTsky
h
2 i
hr; w-g eff s Tw 2732 Tg 273
Tw Tg 546
(15)
1
1
1
1
w g
(16)
Qe; w-g he; w-g Aw Tw Tg
(17)
16:273 103
pw pg
hc; w-g
Tw Tg
(18)
(19)
dmcon
dt
he; w-g
Tw Tg
hfg
!
(8)
It Ig Id
cosqi
cosqh
1 cosb
Id
2
(9)
(10)
Qloss Ub Ab Tb Ta
(11)
2
h
4 i.
4
Tg Tsky
hr;g-sky s Tg 273 Tsky 273
(20)
Tsky Ta 6;
(21)
The convective heat transfer between glass and sky, Qc,g-sky was
given in Refs. [5,7e9],
Qc; g-sky hc; g-sky Ag Tg eTsky
(22)
(23)
2
The partial pressure of water vapor in the air in N/m , is calculated for given temperature ( C) using the following correlation
[5,7e9].
p 7235e431:43T 10:76T 2
(24)
Qc; w-g hc; w-g Aw Tw Tg
(12)
(25)
The specic heat capacity, in J/kg K, of the water vapor inside the
still is calculated using the following correlation [5,7e9].
262
Table 1
Accuracies and ranges of measuring instruments.
(26)
The mathematical simulation was performed for different type
of operations as discussed below:
1.2.1. Still with sponges
To augment the evaporation rate, sponges of uniform sizes, were
added. In simulation, the area of the free surface water Aw was
taken as 1.35 m2 including sponge exposure area. The equations
and other parameter remain the same.
1.2.2. Still with sponge and gravels
Gravel is one of the high solar thermal energy storage materials.
Addition of gravels in the basin surface increases the water temperature and thereby increasing the evaporation rate. Approximately 0.5 kg of gravels were placed along with the sponges of the
same quantity as in Section 1.1.1. The mathematical model of the
simple basin still discussed in Section 1.2, was used for this modication also, except the area of the free surface water Aw was taken
as 1.35 m2 including sponge exposure area. Also Eq. (2) was modied
as follows by considering mass and specic heat of the gravels.
ItAb ab
dT
b
dt
(27)
ItAb ab
dT
b
dt
(28)
dT
b
ItAb ab mb Cpb mact Cp; act ms Cp; s mbr Cp; br
dt
Sl. No.
Instrument
Accuracy
Range
% Error
1.
2.
3
4
Thermocouple
Solarimeter
Anemometer
Measuring beaker
1 C
0.025 W/m2
0.1 m/s
10 ml
0 Ce100 C
0e2000 W/m2
0e15 m/s
0e1000 ml
3%
3.5%
10%
10%
263
hd
X
mcon hfg =
AIt
(30)
3.7 kg/m2. Thus the cost of water produced per day was Rs. 37.0
($0.83) and payback period was calculated as 270 days.
2. Conclusion
A novel solar still integrated with vapor adsorption bed at the
basin was designed, fabricated and characterized. To enhance the
productivity of the still, sponge, gravels, sand, black rubbers and
some of their combinations were used. The performance of the
novel still was compared with that of a conventional solar still. It
was found that distillate production rate in the vapor adsorption
was ranged between 3.1 and 4.3 kg/m2 while the conventional still
distillate production rate was between 1.9 and 2.3 kg/m2. The night
time distillate production rate was also augmented in the vapor
adsorption type solar still by two times than the conventional solar
still. The maximum distillate production rate and daily efciency
was obtained in the vapor adsorption solar still with sand, sponge
and black rubber combinations. The maximum deviation between
theoretical experimental analyses was less than 6%.
Nomenclature
Modications
Conventional
solar still
Vapor adsorption
solar still
Daily efciency
Daily efciency
Without any
modications
With sponge
With sponge and
gravel
With sponge and
sand
With sponge sand
and black rubber
61
75
e
e
78
79
86
93
2
3
4
5
English letters
A
area, m2
Cp
specic heat, J/kg K
I(t)
solar ux on an inclined collector, W/m2
Ig
global radiation intensity on a horizontal plate, W/m2
Id
diffuse radiation intensity on a horizontal plane, W/m2
P
partial pressure, N/m2
Q
heat transfer, W
T
temperature, C
dt
time interval, s
h
heat transfer coefcient, W/m2 K
hfg
enthalpy of evaporation at Tw, J/kg
m
mass, kg
mcon
condensate, kg/m2
U
side heat loss coefcient from basin to ambient, W/m2 K
V
wind velocity, m/s
Greeks
a
b
emissivity
absorptivity
collector surface inclination, degrees
264
s
hd
Subscripts
a
ambient
act
activated carbon
b
basin
br
black rubber
c
convective
e
evaporative
g
glass
gr
gravel
met
methanol
r
radiative
s
sand
w
water
eff
equivalent
loss
side loss
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