TY - JOUR
TI - An experimental study on single basin solar still augmented with evacuated tubes
AU - Karuppusamy Sampathkumar
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2012
VL - 16
IS - 2
SP - 573
EP - 581
PT - Article
AB - The productivity of the solar still is determined by the temperature of water  in the basin and the glass temperature. Various active methods have been  adopted to increase the temperature of the basin, so as to improve the  productivity of solar still. Most of the previous research works have been  focusing on flat plate collector and concentrating collector. In this  experimental study, a single slope solar still directly augmented with  evacuated tubes was used to increase the daily productivity by reducing heat  losses. Evacuated tubes were directly coupled to the lower side of the single  slope solar still with an area of 1m2. Black gravel is used to increase the  productivity by means of reducing quantity of water in the basin. Extensive  experiments were conducted to explore the performance of solar still in  several modes namely still alone, still with black stones, still with  evacuated tubes, and still with evacuated tubes and black gravel. The  experimental setup was designed and installed at Solar Energy Park, Tamilnadu  College of Engineering, Coimbatore (77˚E, 11˚N), Tamilnadu, India. These  experiments were conducted using tap water as feed. It was found that, after  augmentation of the evacuated tubes, the daily production rate has increased  by 49.7 % and it increased by 59.48% with black stones. Economic analysis was  also done and payback period of this experimental setup is 235 days.