Productivity Enhancement of Solar Still for Night Mode Operation

Abstract

Availability of freshwater for day-to-day life is reducing drastically due to various reasons like depletion of source and industrialization. Purification methods require huge amount of energy and associated emissions are the major issues. Moreover, the access of energy in the remote areas is limited. The use of solar energy for the water distillation is the best suiting solution. Various types of solar stills are widely used across the world for this purpose. The difficulty faced by solar distillation is the night-time yield. This difficulty is addressed in the present project work by the addition of phase-change materials (PCMs) in the single-slope solar still. Selection of suitable PCM and the improvement in the productivity are compared. By using Bee wax, a naturally available PCM, the results show 26% of increase in the night yield.