Performance comparison of solar still with inbuilt condenser and agitator over conventional solar still with energy and exergy analysis

Demand for fresh water increases day by day. Solar desalination is one of the promising technologies to meet this demand in an economical fashion which uses solar still. For the current study, single-basin single-slope conventional solar still and a modified single-basin single-slope solar still with inbuilt condenser and agitator were designed and fabricated. Both the stills were tested under the same ambient conditions to compare the performance. Through experimental results, it was found that modified still with inbuilt condenser and agitator had 98.69% more productivity than conventional solar still. Modified still productivity was recorded as 4.856 L/m(2)/day and that of conventional still was 2.44 L/m(2)/day. The agitation effect caused by the agitator in the modified still led to an increase in the rate of evaporation. The increase in condensing area for the same evaporation area of the modified still improved the condensation rate. These two synergized effects resulted in an overall performance improvement of the modified still over the conventional still. An energy analysis revealed that modified still is 24.42% more efficient than its counterpart. The energy efficiency of modified and conventional stills was calculated as 4.82% and 2.04% respectively.