Research Article | OPEN ACCESS
Solar Stills Productivity with Different Arrangements of PV-DC Heater and Sand Layer in Still Basin: A Comparative Investigation
1Ali Riahi, 1Khamaruzaman Wan Yusof, 1Mohamed Hasnain Isa, 2Balbir Singh Mahinder Singh and 1Nasiman Sapari
1Department of Civil Engineering
2Department of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS,
31750 Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia
Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 2014 11:1363-1372
Received: June 20, 2014 | Accepted: July 19, 2014 | Published: September 20, 2014
Abstract
Solar energy as a sustainable and accessible energy source can be harnessed and converted to electrical energy using photovoltaic modules. Solar Photovoltaic (PV) systems show tremendous promise as sustainable, environmentally friendly and low-cost electricity sources. Solar energy can also be applied to produce potable water using solar distillation still. In this study, water production performance of four low-cost solar stills with different arrangements of PV module-DC heater and sea sand layer in the solar still basin was evaluated. Four types of double slope single basin solar distillation stills with similar shapes were fabricated. A stainless steel basin with length 50 cm, width 30 cm and depth 8 cm was used in each solar still. The still configurations differed based on inclusion of 2 cm depth of sea sand layer in the basin and use of a 50 Watts PV-DC heater. A comparison of the cumulative water production among these solar stills showed that the integrated system that included sea sand in the solar still basin and also used PV-DC heater was the most effective; producing two times the water produced by a conventional solar still. The integrated solar still can be employed in coastal and rural areas with lack of clean water and electricity supply.
Keywords:
Direct Current (DC) power, energy conversion , photovoltaic module, solar energy , solar still, water distillation,
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Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests.
Open Access Policy
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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