AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE PERFORMANCE OF A GI BASIN PASSIVE SOLAR STILL USING HORIZONTAL MESH AND VERTICAL MESH

Madhur Shukla , R D Askhedkar , J P Modak

Abstract: Potable Water or Pure Drinking Water is essential to mankind and it is difficult to obtain fresh water at many places . The conventional methods available to purify Water are costly. Solar Energy is freely available and can be used as a very cheap option to purify Water through Solar Distillation, by using Solar Stills . The conventional Single Basin Passive Solar Still or Plain Basin Galvanized Iron (GI) Solar Still can be used to purify Water but the main problem is that the per square metre distillate output is less. Many methods have been used to increase the output of GI Basin Solar Still. Horizontal or Vertical Mesh made of GI can be used in the Basin of Solar Still to increase the distillate output. Outdoor Experiments were conducted at Nagpur, Maharashtra ,India (21.15°N, 79.09°E) for GI Basin Plain (Without Mesh) Solar Still, With Horizontal Mesh and With Vertical Mesh in the months of May-June and September-October. It was found that both the Mesh increase the distillate output considerably, in which the Horizontal Mesh gives an appreciable increase in the Average Distillate Output (about 400ml per day) and an increase of about 6% in the Average Distillation Efficiency whereas the Vertical Mesh gives a significant increase in the Average Distillate Output (about 1000ml per day) with an increase of about 13% in the Average Distillation Efficiency. The Vertical Mesh is very cheap and the payback period for the Vertical Mesh is hardly 3 months. Thus , the GI Basin Solar Still with Vertical Mesh gives a higher output and can be helpful in obtaining pure drinking water for communities , both cheaply and effectively

Keywords: GI Basin Solar Still, Distillate Output, Average Efficiency, Horizontal Mesh, Vertical Mesh

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2014.0301049