Performance analysis of single slope solar desalination setup with natural fiber

Water scarcity across the globe is increasing day by day. Various technologies are evolving to address this issue with a viable solution. In these technologies, desalination using solar still is one of the most prominent, economic, and viable solutions. However, it has very little operating efficiency. The current research is to enhance the performance of a single slope solar desalination setup by improving the freshwater yield. In order to achieve this, a naturally available fiber, Ridge gourd is kept in the absorber basin which leads to an increase in the evaporation rate of water due to porous nature and then the productivity of the desalination setup is increased. Two solar desalination setups are designed, developed, and analyzed in the current research to compare the yield from each setup under similar testing conditions. The solar desalination setup with ridge gourd is tested to evaluate the performance improvement with respect to conventional solar desalination setup. The experiments are conducted at the terrace of the Science Block in the National Institute of Technology Puducherry, Karaikal, India (10.92 degrees N, 79.83 degrees E). It is observed that there is no great influence of ridge gourd on the performance of the desalination setup and hence it is insignificant to use ridge gourd fiber in the desalination for better efficiency.