Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 145150

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Design and performance of a transportable hemispherical solar still

Basel I. Ismail*
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Road, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada P7B 5E1

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 20 September 2007 Accepted 3 March 2008 Available online 2 July 2008 Keywords: Solar stills Solar energy Hemispherical transportable still Still efciency Distillate yield Distilled water

a b s t r a c t
A simple transportable hemispherical solar still was designed and fabricated, and its performance was experimentally evaluated under outdoors of Dhahran climatic conditions. It was found that over the hours of experimental testing through daytime, the daily distilled water output from the still ranged from 2.8 to 5.7 l/m2 day. The daily average efciency of the still reached as high as 33% with a corresponding conversion ratio near 50%. It was also found that the average efciency of the still decreased by 8% when the saline water depth increased by 50%. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction A solar still (also known as solar distiller) is a device by which distilled or potable water can be produced from saline water, such as seawater or brackish water. Solar stills are normally used to provide a small scale of potable water needed in remote isolated locations, where there is plenty of solar energy and sources of saline water are available, or in emergency conditions when other sources of energy are not available [1]. Potable water can be produced at reasonable cost by solar stills which are relatively economical to build and simple to operate and maintain [2,3]. Solar distillation is a technology with a very long history. The rst known application of solar stills was in 1872 when a still at Las Salinas on the northern deserts of Chile started its three decades of operation to supply a mining community with drinking water [4]. Most stills built and studied since then have been based on the same principles, though many variations in geometry, materials, methods of construction, and operation have been incorporated [4]. A review of various designs of solar stills was made by Malik et al. [5]. A conventional basin-type still is simply an airtight basin that contains a shallow layer of saline water, a sloped top cover of a transparent material (usually glass) to solar radiation, and side metal frame walls. The basin-type stills have been much studied and their behavior is well understood [4]. The cost of building and operating a conventional still is

* Tel.: 1 (807) 766 7100; fax: 1 (807) 343 8928. E-mail addresses: baseliai@gmail.com, bismail@lakeheadu.ca 0960-1481/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2008.03.013

relatively low compared to those involving sophisticated designs. However, the conventional or standard basin-type solar still [58] proven to have a low thermal efciency with low daily distillate productivity [9,10]. For example, Tayeb [11] found that the efciency ranged from approximately 15 to 22% while Samee et al. [12] reported a typical efciency of basin-type stills of 25%. Cappelletti [1] reported that a conventional solar still typically produces between approximately 5 l/m2 day (on a bright sunny summer day) and 2 l/m2 day (on a winter day). Moreover, AlHinai et al. [13] performed a parametric study on a conventional double-sloped single-basin solar still under climatic conditions of Sultanate of Oman at the Gulf region. They reported that under optimum design conditions, the still tends to give an average annual solar yield of approximately 4 l/m2 day. The efciency and yield of the conventional solar still depend on different factors: the design and functionality of the still, location, weather conditions, etc. [1,5]. Their low thermal efciency is due to the considerable shadow caused by the walls of the basin that tend to decrease the absorption of solar radiation that could have been used for water distillation process. In order to improve the performance of conventional solar stills, several other designs have been developed, such as the double-basin type [14], multi-basin [15,16], inverted trickle [17], multi-effect [18,19], regenerative [20], with reectors [21], spherical [6], triangular [22] and pyramid type solar still [23,24]. Kalogirou [25] presented an excellent review on various types of passive and active solar stills. Among these types are the single-slope with passive condenser, double condensing chamber solar still, vertical solar still, and conical solar still. In this paper, a new simple design of a transportable

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Saline water inlet port

Hemispherical transparent plastic cover Circular tray (A = 0.5 m2) containing absorber and saline water(Basin) Handle

60% round the year. The monthly average wind speeds for Dhahran range from 4.1 to 6.4 m/s [26]. 3. Design of the solar still A schematic diagram of the new hemispherical (dome-shaped) solar still is shown in Fig. 1 and photographs of the fabricated still are shown in Fig. 2. The still mainly consists of the circular basin (tray) and absorber plate carrying the saline water, the hemispherical cover, the conical-shaped distillate collector, the distillate output plastic container, and the mobile support structure (trolley), as shown in Figs. 1 and 2. The basin of the still (tray) and absorber plate, and the collector were all fabricated using aluminum. The basin contains the absorber aluminum plate which has a surface area of 0.5 m2 and a thickness of 4 mm. A hole with diameter of approximately 25.4 mm was drilled into the tray to provide accessibility of saline water into the basin during initial lling and the bottom section of basin was insulated to reduce thermal losses to the surroundings. The absorber was coated with black paint to maximize absorption of the incident solar radiation on the basin. The hemispherical cover, located on the top of the solar still unit, was made of a transparent plastic with absorptivity and transmissivity equal to 0.9 and 0.8, respectively. The transportable support structure was made of galvanized steel and coated with green paint. For sealing purpose, an approximately 6.5 mm thick rubber ring gasket was used and placed between the cover and the collector support structure where they were tightened and held in place using C-type clamps placed at equal distances around the periphery of the still as shown in Fig. 1. The distillate output from the still was frequently collected using a plastic container placed under the nozzle outlet part of the conically shaped collector. CopperConstantantan thermocouples were installed and used to measure the temperature of the water in the basin at several locations to ensure uniform temperature throughout the basin, and the temperatures of the inside cover and ambient. 4. Experimental procedure Experimental measurements were performed to evaluate the performance of the solar still under the outdoors of Dhahran climatic conditions. Before the commencement of each test the basin was lled with saline water using the inlet port, as shown in Fig. 1, and the hemispherical cover was cleaned from dust. The

C-clamps

Transportable frame support (Trolley) Conical-shaped aluminum distillate collector

Distillate yield outlet port Wheel

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the new transportable hemispherical solar still (drawn not to scale).

hemispherical type solar still is presented and its steady-state performance under Dhahran climatic conditions is evaluated. 2. Test site meteorological environment The new semi-spherical solar still was tested under Dhahran (26 320 N, 50130 E) climatic conditions in a typical summer month. Dhahran city is located just north of the Tropic of Cancer on the eastern coastal region of Saudi Arabia and is nearly 10 km inland from the Arabian Gulf Coast [26]. Dhahran is situated in a desert environment, although it is in the vicinity of the coast. Dhahran is characterized by two distinct seasons: a very hot season (May October) and a cold season (NovemberApril) [26]. The hot months are typically characterized by high solar insolation [27] with monthly mean temperatures reach close to 37  C and in cooler months the mean temperatures drop to approximately 17  C [26]. The relative humidity exhibits a large diurnal cycle on the order of

Fig. 2. Photographs of the fabricated hemispherical solar still.

B.I. Ismail / Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 145150

147

100 Day 1

1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6

Temperature ( deg. C)

80 Tw 60 Ta

Tc

40

20 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Time of day (hours)

100

Solar irradiance (W/m^2)

Time of day (hours)

Day 3
Fig. 4. The hourly variation of solar irradiance during the six days of testing the solar still.

Temperature ( deg.C)

80
Tc Tw

60

Ta

CR

Vd Vs

(2)

40

20 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Time of day (hours)

100

Temperature ( deg. C)

Day 6 80 Tw 60 Ta Tc

where md is the mass of the distillate output, hfg is the water latent heat of vaporization, A is the absorber area, G is the solar irradiance, sa is the transmissivityabsorptivity product of the still cover, Dt is the time interval, Vd is the daily distillate output volume, and Vs is the daily input saline water volume. The saline water depth in the still basin was varied during the six days of testing in order to investigate the effect of water depth on the distillate productivity. For example, in the start of the experimental work of the rst two days, the saline water was lled into the still to a depth of 14 mm. However, for days 3 and 4 the depth initially was 18 mm, while it was 12 mm for the days 5 and 6. 5. Results and discussion Typical results of the variation of the saline water temperature, glass cover temperature, and ambient temperature during representative days of testing are shown in Fig. 3. As shown, the temperatures of the water and cover have similar trends, as they increase in the morning hours to maximum values around noontime before they start to decrease late in the afternoon. This is due to the increase of solar irradiance in the morning and the decrease in the afternoon. It is interesting to note that the rate of increase

40

20 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Time of day (hours)

Fig. 3. Typical results of the variation of saline water temperature (Tw), still cover temperature (Tc) and ambient temperature (Ta) during three days of testing the solar still.

12

tests started around 8:00 am when the still was allowed to warm up for approximately 1.5 h before measurements of distillate yield and temperatures were taken at every 30 min time interval for approximately 8.5 h. Six tests for six days were performed in a typical high solar insolation month (i.e. June) in a summer season to demonstrate the stills typical maximum efciency. During these tests, the hourly measurements of wind speed and solar radiation were recorded and provided by the Center for Engineering Research laboratory of the Research Institute at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Mineral (KFUPM). The still efciency [4] and performance conversion ratio (CR) were calculated using

10

Wind speed (m/s)

8 6 4 2 0

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6

md hfg h AGsaDt
and

(1)

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Time of day (hours)

Fig. 5. The hourly variation of wind speed during the six days of testing the solar still.

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and decrease in the cover temperature is faster than that of the water temperature as shown in Fig. 3. This is due to the fact that the saline water in the still basin has higher thermal inertia (i.e. heat capacity) than that of the plastic cover, so that it tends to gain and lose the heat absorbed from the incident solar radiation during the day at relatively slower rate as opposed to that of the still cover. The hourly variation of solar irradiance measured during the six days of testing the solar still is shown in Fig. 4. As expected, the proles of solar radiation incident on the still during the six days of testing have similar trends. In particular, the solar radiation increases in the morning hours reaching maximum values around

400 350 Day 1 Day 2 Saline water depth = 14 mm

Ditillate yield (ml/h)

300 250 200 150 100 50 0 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16

17

18

19

20

Time of day (hours)

400 350 Day 3 Day 4 Saline water depth = 18 mm

300 250 200 150 100 50 0 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

noontime and then decreases in the afternoon. It can be noted from Fig. 4 that solar irradiance values varied between those days of testing reaching higher values for days 1, 2, and 6 as opposed to days 3, 4, and 5. For example, the maximum values of solar irradiance around noontime were approximately 1000, 934, and 975 W/m2 for the days 1, 2, and 6, respectively. However, measurements of solar irradiance indicated 822, 872, and 680 W/m2 for the days 3, 4, and 5, respectively. The hourly variation of wind speed for the six days of testing the solar still is shown in Fig. 5. The wind speed values uctuated during all days of testing. As shown in Fig. 5, day 6 exhibited relatively higher wind speed values as compared to the rest of the days. In particular, it ranged from approximately 5 to 7 m/s for day 6, whereas it varied between approximately 2 and 4 m/s for the other days with the lowest being for day 5. The average wind speed values were calculated to be approximately 3.3, 3.5, 3.6, 4.0, 2.7, and 6.0 m/s for the respective days in ascending order. The variation of solar still productivity during the six days of testing is shown in Fig. 6. It can be noticed from this gure that the solar still distillate productivity follows similar trend as that of the variation in solar irradiance for all days of testing. The distillate yield from the still reached its highest values around noontime for all days. In particular, it ranged from approximately 0.40 l/h m2 absorber area (for day 4) to 0.7 l/h m2 absorber area (for day 6). The higher distillate yield (for day 6) is mainly due to relatively higher solar irradiance incident on the still (Fig. 4) that caused higher evaporation rates in the still, higher wind speed (Fig. 5) that tend to cause higher condensation rates at the still cover, and lower saline water depth in the basin that caused higher absorption rates of solar radiation due to lower thermal inertia of the water. It should be noted that the effect of saline water depth on the performance of the solar still is presented at the end of this section. Fig. 7 shows the accumulated distillate yield produced from the still as a function of daytime for the six days of testing. It can be noticed that at the end of the testing period (6:00 pm) of each day, the distillate yield reached approximately 4.0 l/m2 of absorber area for day 1, 4.7 l/m2 for day 2, 3.5 l/m2 for day 3, 2.8 l/m2 for day 4, 3.9 l/m2 for day 5, and 5.7 l/m2 for day 6. The hourly variation of the still efciency (calculated using Eq. (1)) during the six days of testing is shown in Fig. 8. The still efciency proles follow similar trends as of those for solar radiation and distillate yield as shown in Fig. 8. In particular, the still efciency increases in the morning time till reaching maximum value around noontime and then decreases at slower rate in the

Distillate yield (ml/h)

16

17

18

19

20 3

Time of day (hours)

400 350 Day 5 Day 6 Saline water depth = 12 mm

Accumulated distillate yield (liter)

2.5

Distillate yield (ml/h)

300 250 200 150 100 50 0 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

1.5 1 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

0.5

0 16 17 18 19 20

Time of day (hours)

Fig. 7. The accumulated distillate yield from the still as a function of daytime during the six days of testing.

Time of day (hours)

Fig. 6. The variation of solar still productivity during the six days of testing.

B.I. Ismail / Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 145150

149

70 60 Solar irradiance Still efficiency Day 1 Day 2 Saline water depth = 14mm

1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

50

Solar irradiance (W/m^2)

Still efficiendy (%)

50 40 30 20 10 0

Daily still efficiency (%)

40

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6

30

20

Time of day (hours)

10 70 60 Solar irradiance Still efficiency Day 3 Day 4 Saline water depth = 18mm 1400 10 12 14 16 18 20

Solar irradiance (W/m^2)

1200 1000 800 600 400 200

Saline water depth in the basin (mm)

Fig. 9. The effect of saline water depth in the still basin on still daily efciency.

Still efficiendy (%)

50 40 30 20 10 0 8 9

0 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Time of day (hours)

70 60 Solar irradiance Still efficiency Day 5 Day 6 Saline water depth = 12mm 1400

50 40 30 20 10 0 8 9

1000 800 600 400 200

Solar irradiance (W/m^2)

1200

Still efficiendy (%)

for day 6, so that the hourly efciency ratio calculated for the two days remains relatively the same. The effect of saline water depth in the still basin on still daily efciency is shown in Fig. 9. As shown, the daily efciency of the still decreases linearly as the water depth increases. In particular, the stills daily average efciency decreased from approximately 31 to 23% (by 8%) when increasing the water depth from 12 to 18 mm (depth increased by 50%), respectively. The daily efciency reached its maximum value with approximately 32.6% for day 6, whereas its minimum reached 22.6% for day 4. The effect of saline water depth in the still basin on still daily conversion ratio is shown in Fig. 10. There, the daily conversion ratio for the six days was calculated using Eq. (2). Once again, the conversion ratio of the still decreases as the water depth increases. For example, it reached its maximum value of 49.4% (i.e. 49.4% of the saline water was converted to distillate, at depth 12 mm) for day 6, whereas it dropped to 15.4% for day 4 (at depth 18 mm).

6. Cost estimation Typically, in designing a solar still for a primary application to provide a small scale of potable water needed in remote isolated locations, the objective is to maintain the cost minimal. Cost

0 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Time of day (hours)

Fig. 8. The hourly variation of the still efciency during the six days of testing.

60 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6

afternoon. The efciency reached maximum value of approximately 53.0% (at noon time) for day 1, and 52.0% (at 13 h) for day 2. For the days 3 and 4, the efciency of the still reached as high as 48.2% and 41.1% at noontime, respectively. The still exhibited relatively higher efciencies for days 5 and 6. It reached approximately 56.8% (at noon time) for day 5, whereas it reached its highest being 59.8% (at 13 h). It is interesting to note that the efciency proles are comparable for each pair of testing days, as shown in Fig. 8, in spite of the differences in their respective solar radiation and distillate yield individual values. This is expected since the efciency was calculated as the ratio of the decrease (or increase) of the rate of distillate yield to the corresponding decrease (or increase) in the rate of solar radiation. For example, for day 5, although it has much lower distillate yield, its solar radiation decreased at higher rate than those

Still conversion ratio (%)

50

40

30

20

10 10 12 14 16 18 20

Saline water depth in the basin (mm)

Fig. 10. The effect of saline water depth in the still basin on still daily conversion ratio.

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Table 1 Cost estimation for the components of the fabricated hemispherical solar still Component Two aluminum sheets (2 mm thickness) Aluminum sheet (4 mm thickness) Plastic dome Support legs Coating and primers Two sponge rubber sheet with 0.25 in Eight clamps Pipe and ttings Other minor components were available at no cost Cost (US$) 102 119 160 40 48 27 38 14

References
[1] Cappelletti GM. An experiment with a plastic solar still. Desalination 2002; 142:2217. [2] Al-Hayek I, Badran OO. The effect of using different designs of solar stills on water distillation. Desalination 2004;169:1217. [3] Hanson A, Zachritz W, Stevens K, Mimbela L, Polka R, Cisneros L. Distillate water quality of a single-basin solar still: laboratory and eld studies. Sol Energy 2004;76:63545. [4] Dufe JA, Beckman WA. Solar engineering of thermal processes. 2nd ed. Wiley; 1991. [5] Malik MAS, Tiwari GN, Kumar A, Sodha MS. Solar distillation: a practical study of a wide range of stills and optimum design, construction and performance. New York: Pergamon Press; 1982. [6] Dhiman NK. Transient analysis of a spherical solar still. Desalination 1988;69: 4755. [7] Cooper PI. The absorption of radiation in solar stills. Sol Energy 1969;12: 333. [8] Lof GOG. Solar desalination. In: Spiegler KS, editor. Principles of desalination. New York: Academic Press; 1966 [chapter 5]. [9] Tiwari GN. Recent advances in solar distillation. In: Kamal R, Maheshwari KP, Sawhney RL, editors. Solar energy and energy conservation. New Delhi: Wiley Eastern; 1992 [chapter 2]. [10] Fath HES. High performance of a simple design, two effects, solar distillation unit. Energy Convers Manag 1997;38(18):1895905. [11] Tayeb AM. Performance study of some designs of solar stills. Energy Convers Manag 1992;33(9):88998. [12] Samee MA, Mirza UK, Majeed T, Ahmad N. Design and performance of a single basin solar still. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2007;11:5439. [13] Al-Hinai H, Al-Nassri MS, Jubran BA. Effect of climatic, design and operational parameters on the yield of a simple solar still. Energy Convers Manag 2002;43: 163950. [14] Al-Karaghouli AA, Alnaser WE. Experimental comparative study of the performances of single and double basin solar-stills. Appl Energy 2004;77: 31725. [15] Tiwari GN, Singh SK, Bhatnagra VP. Analytical thermal modeling of multi-basin solar still. Energy Convers Manag 1993;34(12):12616. [16] El-Sebaii AA. Thermal performance of a triple-basin solar still. Desalination 2005;174:2337. [17] Badran AA. Inverted trickle solar still: effect of heat recovery. Desalination 2001;133:16773. [18] Tiwari GN, Singh HN, Tripathi R. Present status of solar distillation. Sol Energy 2003;75:36773. [19] Yuichi Y, Haruki S. Development of small-scale multi-effect solar still. In: International Solar Energy Conference; 2003. p. 167173. [20] Abu-Arabi M, Zurigat Y. Year-round comparative study of three types of solar distillation units. Desalination 2005;172:13743. [21] Tanaka H, Nakatake Y. Theoretical analysis of a basin type solar still with internal and external reectors. Desalination 2006;197:20516. [22] Rubio-Cerda E, Porta-Gandara MA, Fernandez-Zayas JL. Thermal performance of the condensing covers in a triangular solar still. Renew Energy 2002;27: 3018. [23] Hamdan MA, Musa AM, Jubran BA. Performance of solar still under Jordanian climate. Energy Convers Manag 1999;40:495503. [24] Kabeel AE. Water production from air using multi-shelves solar glass pyramid system. Renew Energy 2007;32:15772. [25] Kalogirou SA. Seawater desalination using renewable energy sources. Prog Energy Combust Sci 2005;31(3):24281. [26] Elhadidy MA, Shaahid SM. Parametric study of hybrid (wind solar diesel) power generating systems. Renew Energy 2000;21:12939. [27] Al-Sulaiman FA, Ismail B. Estimation of monthly average daily and hourly solar radiation impinging on a sloped surface using the isotropic sky model for Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Renew Energy 1997;11(2):25762.

estimation for various components used in the in-house fabrication of the hemispherical solar still is given in Table 1. The cost of the hemispherical plastic cover (dome) was approximately US$160 which is considered to be the highest cost compared to the cost of other components. This is due to the fact that the dome was not generally available and was custom made to the required size. The cost of labor work was estimated at $410. The total cost of the fabricated still, including labor, was approximately $958. It should be noted that the solar still here was fabricated for research purpose and not for commercial use. It is expected that the cost would signicantly decrease if a large number of stills are fabricated for commercial purpose.

7. Conclusions In this work, a new transportable hemispherical solar still was designed, fabricated and experimentally tested during daytime for six days under outdoors of Dhahran climatic conditions. It was found that over the hours of testing in daytime, the daily distillate produced from the still ranged from approximately 2.8 to 5.7 l/m2 of absorber area. The daily efciency of the still reached as high as 33%. The experimental results indicated that the still was capable of converting up to nearly 50% of the saline water input into distilled water output. The effect of saline water depth on the still efciency was also studied. It was found that the daily efciency of the still decreases linearly as the water depth increases.

Acknowledgements The author wishes to acknowledge the Center for Engineering Research of the Research Institute at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) for providing the solar radiation data that made this research possible.