1203

Mathematical modelling and experimental

study of a solar distillation system
O Mahian and A Kianifar
Faculty of Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

The manuscript was received on 7 June 2010 and was accepted after revision for publication on 4 November 2010.
DOI: 10.1177/2041298310392648

Abstract: The production of potable water from saltwater or brackish water using solar distilla-
tion has been practised for many years in different parts of the world. However, little attention
has been paid to the feasibility of this technique in Iran. In this work, a solar still with a basin
area of 0.9 m2 and a glass cover in the form of a pyramid has been designed and constructed, and
its performance is studied experimentally in Mashhad, Iran. Also, the performance of the solar
still is modelled where a small fan was utilized to enhance the daily productivity of freshwater.
In addition to the effect of forced convection caused by a fan, the effects of the water depth, the
insulation thickness of the basin base, and the wind velocity have been investigated. The empir-
ical results have been compared with the results obtained from the mathematical model and
good agreement has been obtained. The results show that the use of a low-cost fan with negligi-
ble power can be an effective and economical way of enhancing the evaporation rate and hence
freshwater production. Based on the mathematical model, the daily productivity of freshwater
increases up to 56 per cent at a Reynolds number of 35 000. Finally, an effective range for the
wind velocity as well as insulation thickness is presented in order to optimize the production rate
of freshwater.

Keywords: solar still, forced convection, basin depth, wind velocity, insulation thickness,
mathematical modelling, experimental study

1 INTRODUCTION sanitation, and welfare [2]. As a partial solution to

Potable water demand is increasing due to rapid popu-
lation increase and also due to uncontrolled pollution
of freshwater resources [1]. According to the World
Health Organization, nearly 2.8 billion people (approx-
imately 40 per cent of the world population) currently
have no access to safe drinking water, and water-borne
diseases account for 90 per cent of all infectious dis-
eases in the developing world. The World Resources
Institute predicts that, by 2025, at least 3.5 billion peo-
ple will experience water shortage. Global agencies
(including WHO, UNDP, UNICEF, etc.) expect that 24
of the least developed countries, many of them along
coastal areas without access to freshwater and elec-
tricity, need to more than double their efforts to reach
the millennium development goals for basic health,
Corresponding author: Faculty of Engineering, Ferdowsi Univer-
sity of Mashhad, Box No. 91775-1111, Mashhad, Iran.
email: a_kianifar@yahoo.com; a-kiani@um.ac.ir
water shortage, desalination systems have been imple-
mented lowering the traditional energy requirements
for desalination by making use of renewable sources
such as solar energy. A solar still is a very simple way for
distilling water, powered by the heat of the sun, which
can be useful in the warm arid areas around the world
particularly in the Middle East region. In Iran, there
is an increasing need for the production of potable
water from saline water. However, little attention has
been paid to achieve this, although the country has
abundant saltwater sources, based on its geographical
location, and also a solar potential of over 250 sunny
days per year in most regions.
The use of solar stills, as a cheap and easy method
for providing freshwater, dates back to the 16th cen-
tury [3]. From the 16th to the 19th century, there
has been no significant application of solar distilla-
tion [4]. The first conventional solar still plant was
built in 1872 by the Swedish engineer Charles Wilson.
On a typical summer day the 4700 m2 solar still plant
would produce 4.9 l of distilled water per square metre

Proc. IMechE Vol. 225 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

1204 O Mahian and A Kianifar
of still surface [5]. Therefore, in the recent decades
many researchers have developed mathematical mod-
els, and experimentally tried to improve the design of
the conventional solar still in order to increase its daily
production.
There are many parameters influencing solar still
productivity, such as solar radiation intensity, ambi-
ent temperature, wind speed, design parameters, and
operational parameters. In some publications, param-
eters affecting the production of solar stills as well as
the different configurations of the solar stills have been
reviewed, which can be informative in designing and
modelling solar stills [69].
1.1 Previous researches relating to the present
work
A review of the literature reveals that in a few studies
the effect of forced convection caused by a fan was
investigated and among them the works by Ali [1012]
can be referenced.
Ali [10] investigated the effect of forced convection
on the performance of a single basin solar still of 3 m2
area. The air was allowed to circulate inside the still by
placing a fan on one side of the still, connected to an
aluminium channel on the other side of the still. The
obtained result showed that the distilled water output
in the case with a fan and an insulated air channel was
nearly 29.7 per cent higher than the output in the nat-
ural convection case. Ali [11] also studied the effects
of forced convection inside the solar still on the coeffi-
cients of heat and mass transfer using a mathematical
model and his results revealed that the productivity of
the solar still increases for higher Reynolds number,
but it falls after reaching a certain value.
Later on, Ali [12] used a mathematical model to
examine the effect of condensation process outside
the still on the solar still performance, considering the
forced convection caused by the fan. In this article, the
mathematical modelling of a single basin solar still is
presented.
Ali, in his works, had utilized a still with a triangular
glass cover, whereas in this study, a pyramid-shaped
glass cover is used. It should be noted that the max-
imum solar radiation occurs in pyramid-shaped [13]
objects. Additionally, among the different types of
solar stills, a pyramid-shaped solar still has higher
average annual productivity and the lowest cost per
1 l distilled water [14]. A 0.9 m2 solar still has been
designed, constructed, and tested in Mashhad, Iran.
The empirical results obtained are compared with the
theoretical results.
For studying the effect of forced convection on the
performance of the solar still, a fan with negligible
power consumption is utilized for circulating the air
inside the solar still system, which caused the improve-
ment of the evaporation rate and, hence, increased the
quantity of distilled water.
Proc. IMechE Vol. 225 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science
In this work, not only the effect of forced convection
but also the effects of the basin depth, wind velocity,
and insulation thickness on the solar still productivity
have been investigated.
2 EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP AND PROCEDURE
Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the solar still
set-up. The experimental test rig consists of a single
basin with an effective area of 0.9 m2 where the still
side walls and the base were leak proof and made of
polyethylene. The thicknesses of the side walls and the
base are 25 and 8 mm, respectively. As shown in Fig. 1, a
tee-tube is mounted on one side wall of the still, which
is used as the inlet of saltwater. Also, a vent pipe is con-
nected to the tee-tube in order to prevent overflowing
of the saltwater when the water depth in the basin
exceeds 25 cm. A black plate is used to cover the base of
the solar still. The incident solar radiation is transmit-
ted through a 4 mm thick pyramid-shaped glass cover
and then the heat is absorbed by the black plate. The
saltwater is heated by solar radiation, and evaporation
takes place. The vapour condenses on the inside of the
glass cover, which is at a lower temperature since it is
in contact with the ambient air. The condensed water
runs down into a gutter, which is made of galvanized
steel and connected to the outlet (drain pipe). In this
system, a small fan with negligible power consump-
tion (1.9 W) was installed in the middle of one of the
side walls of the solar still in order to investigate the
effect of forced convection.
The cubic foot per minute, ft3 /min (CFM) rating
of the fan (the amount of air that the fan blows) is
45 (0.0212 m3 /s), which has been used for measuring
the Reynolds number. It should be noted that in the
experiments, the volumetric flowrate of air induced
by the fan was constant. The Reynolds number in the
experiments can be measured by the following relation
qf
Re =
dm m
where qf (m3 /s) refers to the volumetric flowrate of air
induced by the fan, dm (m) represents the difference
between the height of solar still (0.25 m) and the depth
of water, and m shows the kinematic viscosity of air
inside the still.
A hole in the still side wall allows inserting two ther-
mocouples for measuring the basin water temperature
as well as the inside air temperature.
The experimental tests were conducted in Mashhad,
Iran, which is at a latitude of 36 36 N and an altitude of
990 m. For maximum annual solar radiation, the (slope
surface) glass inclination equal to the latitude is best
[15]. This is confirmed in several other references too
[8, 9, 16, 17].
Hence, based on the geographic location and the
above references, the glass cover was fixed at an angle
 Mathematical modelling and experimental study of a solar distillation system 1205

Fig. 1 Schematic of the pyramid-shaped solar still

of 36 with respect to the horizontal axis. The test was
carried out for 2 months (June and July), so that the
final results are the average of tests in this period.
The standard deviation of the results is 3.6 per cent.
The daily average values of wind velocity and ambi-
ent temperature for these 2 months were reported by a
local meteorological station in Mashhad. These were,
respectively, 1.2 m/s and 32 C. The maximum solar
intensity reported was around 970 W/m2 . The exper-
imental data were recorded every 30 min during the
daytime and a few hours after sunset (6 am to 11 pm).
3. There is no temperature gradient along the glass
cover thickness and in water depth.
4. The relationship between the pressure and temper-
ature in the still is linear.
5. Reduction of the basin water caused by evaporation
is negligible in comparison with the whole water
inside the still.
By considering the above assumptions, energy bal-
ance equations should be solved for the main compo-
nents of the system.

3.1 Heat balance equation for the glass cover

3 MATHEMATICAL MODELLING
The energy balance equation for the glass cover as a
The transient modelling of a solar still was performed control volume can be expressed as follows
by energy balance on various components of the still 
with the help of the FORTRAN 90 software. Figure 2 dTg Aw
Ag mg Cpg = Ag T1 Hs + Qr,wg + Qc,wg
illustrates various energy quantities in the still that dt Ag
have a direct effect on the output yield. To simplify 
modelling, the assumptions are as follows. + Qevp,wg Qr,gsky Qc,ga
1. The physical properties are constant. (1)
2. There is no vapour leakage in the still where this
leads to an increase in the productivity and effi- Hs is the total solar radiation absorbed by the system
ciency. (W/m2 ) and T1 is the amount of energy absorbed by the

Proc. IMechE Vol. 225 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

1206 O Mahian and A Kianifar

Fig. 2 Energy flow diagram of the pyramid-shaped solar still

glass cover and is defined as In the case of forced convection (using the fan),
Qcf,wg should be used instead of the term Qc,wg in
T1 = (1 Rg )g (2) equation (1); thus, the heat transfer inside the solar
where Rg is the glass reflection coefficient and g is the still between the saltwater and the glass cover can be
glass absorption coefficient. expressed as [19]
The radiation heat transfer from the saltwater to
the glass cover (Qr,wg ) is obtained using the following Qcf,wg = hcf,wg (Tm Tg ) (6)
correlation
(Tw4 Tg4 ) where hcf,wg is the forced convection heat transfer
Qr,wg = (3) coefficient determined from
(1/w ) + (1/g ) 1
in which w is the emissivity of water, g is the k
hcf,wg = 0.037 Re 0.8 Pr 0.33 (7)
emissivity of glass, and is the StefanBoltzmann dh
constant.
Qc,wg is the natural convection heat transfer Re, Pr, k, and dh are Reynolds number, Prandtl num-
between the saltwater and the glass cover ber, thermal conductivity, and the hydraulic diameter
of the still, respectively. The above relation is found to
Qc,wg = hc,wg (Tw Tg ) (4) be correct for Re up to 150 000.
In equation (4), the convective heat transfer coef- Due to condensation of the rising vapour on the
ficient hc,wg proposed by Dunkle [18] is a semi- glass, heat loss occurs by evaporation between the
empirical relation water surface and the glass cover. The evaporative
heat transfer (based on natural convection) Qevp,wg
  is calculated as follows [20]
(Pw Pg )(Tw + 273.15) 1/3
hc,wg = 0.884 Tw Tg +
268.9 103 Pw
Qevp,wg = hevp,wg (Tw Tg ) (8)
(5)

where Pw and Pg are the vapour pressures at glass and In equation (8), the evaporative heat transfer
water temperatures, respectively. coefficient between water and glass, hevp,wg , is

Proc. IMechE Vol. 225 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

 Mathematical modelling and experimental study of a solar distillation system 1207

defined as follows
(Pw Pg )
hevp,wg = 16.273 103 hc,wg (9) T2 = (1 Rg )(1 g )w (18)
(Tw Tg )

The evaporative heat transfer (based on forced con- Qr,wg , Qc,wg , and Qevp,wg can be found from equa-
vection) from water to glass caused by mass transfer, tions (3), (4), and (8), respectively.
Qevpf ,wg , is defined as [19] Qc,bw is the heat transfer from the solar still base to
the solar still water calculated using the correlation by
 
Tg Tm Hongfei et al. [22]
Qevpf ,wg = hm C (10)
Tg Tm
Qc,bw = hc,bw (Tb Tw ) (19)
where
D The convection heat transfer coefficient (hc,bw ) can
hm = 0.037 Re 0.8 Sc 0.33 (11) be obtained from equations (20) and (21)
dh

in which Sc is the Schmidt number and D (m2 /s) is hc,bw Xw

Nu = = 0.54(Gr.Pr)1/4 (20)
the diffusion coefficient of water in air; also C can be kw
calculated from
By substituting the definitions of the non-
Mw L dimensional parameters Gr and Pr in the above rela-
C = Ps (12) tion in which Gr is the Grashof number, the following
R
relation for the convection heat transfer coefficient is
where Ps (Pa) is the saturated vapour pressure, Mw obtained
(kg) is the molecular mass, R(kJ/kmol K) is the uni-  1/4
versal gas constant, and L (kJ/kg) is the latent heat of kw Xw3 2 g (Tb Tw ) Cp
hc,bw = 0.54 (21)
evaporation. Xw 2 kw
The rate of heat transfer by radiation from the glass
cover to the ambient air (Qr,gsky ) is defined as in which Xw (m) is the mean characteristic length of
the solar still between the basin and the water surface,
(Tg4 Tsky
4
) Tb is the base temperature, and the other parameters
Qr,gsky = (13)
(1/g ) + (1/sky ) + 1 are the properties of water.

In equation (13), Tsky can be calculated using the

following correlation [21] 3.3 Heat balance equation for the base
The energy balance equation for the base of the solar
Tsky = Ta 6 (14)
still can be expressed as
The convection heat transfer from the glass cover to 
dTb
the ambient air is defined as Ab mb Cpb = Ab T3 Hs + Qc,bw + Qloss (22)
dt
Qc,ga = hc,ga (Tg Ta ) (15) where T3 is the amount of energy absorbed by the black
surface on the base and can be obtained from
where there is a linear relation between the convec-
tion heat transfer coefficient outside of the still and
T3 = (1 Rg )(1 g )(1 w )b (23)
the velocity of wind [12]

hc,ga = 4.5 + 2.9Vwind (16) Qc,bw can be obtained using equation (19). Qloss is
the heat loss from the base to the ambient air and can
be calculated as
3.2 Heat balance equation for the solar still water
The energy balance equation can be expressed as Qloss = Ub (Tb Tw ) (24)

dTw in which Ub is the overall heat transfer coefficient.

Aw mw Cpw = Aw [T2 Hs + Qr,wg + Qc,wg
dt
+ Qevp,wg Qc,bw ] (17) 3.4 Heat balance equation for the inside air
where T2 is the amount of energy absorbed by the Finally, by considering the air inside the still as con-
saltwater inside the system and is determined as trol volume, the energy balance equation can be

Proc. IMechE Vol. 225 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

1208 O Mahian and A Kianifar

expressed as 3.5 Distillate production and thermal efficiency

The rate of freshwater production varies with the evap-
dTm  
mm Cpm = Aw Qc,wm + Qevp,wm oration rate. The rate of distillate production mw (in
dt kg s/m2 ) can be obtained using the following equation
 
+ Ag Qc,wg + Qevp,wg (25)
Qevp,wg
Qc,wm is the convection heat transfer from the water mw = (29)
L
surface to the air inside the solar still and Qevp,wm is
the evaporative heat transfer. The thermal efficiency of the solar still is defined as
The convective heat transfer from the water to the
air inside the solar still can be obtained from
Qevp
= (30)
Qc,wm = hc,wm (Tw Tm ) (26) Hs

where hc,wm is obtained similar to equation (7) in which Qevp is the evaporative heat transfer (in
W/m2 ).
The system characteristics and the thermophysical
k
hc,wm = 0.037Re 0.8 Pr 0.33 (27) properties assumed in the mathematical modelling
dh are shown in Table 1.

The evaporative heat transfer from the saltwater to

the inside air is defined as [23] 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
 
Tm Tw In this section, the results of experiments and mathe-
Qevp,wm = hm C (28)
Tm Tw matical modelling are presented and the effects of the
basin depth, Reynolds number (forced convection),
where hm and C can be obtained from equations (11) wind velocity, and insulation thickness on solar still
and (12), respectively. productivity are discussed.

Table 1 System characteristics and ther- 4.1 Experimental results and comparative analysis
mophysical properties assumed in
mathematical modelling To validate the presented model, the experimental and
theoretical results are compared as follows.
Ag 1.137 m2
Aw 0.893 m2
mg 11.37 kg 4.1.1 Comparative analysis based on natural
mb 23 kg convection
L 2438 kJ/kg
5.67 108 W/(m2 K4 ) Table 2 shows the empirical and theoretical value of
w 998 kg/m3
a 1.1614 kg/m3 the production rate at different depths. The percent-
w 276.1 106 C1 age errors between the experimental and modelling
Rg 0.0735 results vary between 11.4 per cent and 28.2 per cent,
g 0.0475
the latter obtained at a depth of 6 cm. It can also be
b 0.95
w 0.05 observed that the experimental optimum basin depth
g 0.88 obtained at 5 cm while the modelling predicts the
w 0.96 optimum depth to be at nearly 6 cm.
Mw 0.018 015 kg/mol
w 8.55 104 N s/m2
a 1.84 105 N s/m2
D 2.26 105 m2 /s Table 2 Comparative analysis of daily distillate produc-
Pr 5.83 tion at varying depths
Ub 0.18 W/(m2 C)
ka 0.0263 W/(m C) Daily distillate production (l)
kw 0.613 W/(m C)
Cpg 0.8 kJ/(kg C) Depth (cm) Experimental Simulation Percentage error
Cpb 845 kJ/(kg C)
Cpw 4.217 kJ/(kg C) 3 3.04 3.55 16.7
R 8.314 J/(mol K) 4 3.32 3.70 11.4
volf 12 V 5 3.43 3.95 15.1
df 60 mm 6 3.12 4.00 28.2
Vf 2500 r/min 8 2.83 3.60 27.2

Proc. IMechE Vol. 225 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

 Mathematical modelling and experimental study of a solar distillation system
Fig. 3 Comparative analysis of freshwater production
based on forced convection (at a depth of 4 cm)
4.1.2 Comparative analysis based on forced
convection
In the case of forced convection, the circulation of air
inside the solar still and hence the evaporation rate has
been increased by the use of a small fan. The compar-
ative analysis of the water distillate production rate at
a depth of 4 cm (based on forced convection) is shown
in Fig. 3. The difference between the experimental and
theoretical freshwater productions was found to be
25 per cent at a depth of 4 cm. The predicted fresh-
water production was about 5 l per day, whereas the
empirical result shows this value to be around 4.2 l per
day.
4.2 Effects of different parameters on the daily
productivity
4.2.1 Effect of basin depth
Figure 4 is plotted based on the data of Table 2 to exam-
ine the effect of basin depth on the daily productivity
Fig. 4 Effect of basin depth on freshwater production
based on natural convection
1209
in the case of natural convection. The most impor-
tant parameter influencing solar still productivity is
the basin water temperature which depends strongly
on the depth of the basin water [24]. Therefore, the
basin depth as an important factor can be selected to
investigate its effect on the distillate production.
The depth affects the saltwater temperature in the
basin, thereby affecting the evaporation rate and
the daily productivity. As mentioned in the previous
section, based on the theoretical results, the maxi-
mum daily distillate production was obtained at a
depth of 6 cm; this is the optimum basin depth where
the daily and nightly productions are high and steady.
For depths lower than 6 cm, the saltwater temperature
rises and decreases quickly during the day and night,
respectively. This results in a low yield during night
time. When the depths are greater than 6 cm, more
solar heat is needed to increase the saltwater tempera-
ture during the day. However, the distillate production
is higher at night because of the thermal capacity of
the basin. Therefore, at high depths, the distillate pro-
duction during the day is lower than the production
at night time. The maximum theoretical thermal effi-
ciency of the solar still was found to be 35 per cent at
a depth of 6 cm.
4.2.2 Effect of Reynolds number
In a solar still desalination system, it is desirable
to have a high heat transfer coefficient in order to
enhance the evaporation rate. Increasing the Reynolds
number is one way of improving the heat transfer. In
the current system, a small fan was used to increase the
Reynolds number and therefore improve the vapour
flow. In modelling, the depth of saline water and the
ambient air velocity were assumed to be 4 cm and
2 m/s, respectively. Figure 5 shows the daily produc-
tion at different Reynolds numbers. It is clear from
this figure that the daily distillate production increases
when the Reynolds number is increased. The fan
Fig. 5 Effect of Reynolds number on freshwater produc-
tion
Proc. IMechE Vol. 225 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science
1210 O Mahian and A Kianifar

creates a larger pressure difference, thereby increas-

ing the evaporation rate at the surface of the saltwater.
At a zero Reynolds number, the daily distillate produc-
tion is 4.1 l. The daily distillate production increases to
6.4 l at a Reynolds number of 35 000. This result shows
that the use of a low-cost fan with negligible power
is an effective and economical way of enhancing the
evaporation rate and hence freshwater production.

4.2.3 Effect of wind velocity

Figure 6 shows the effect of wind velocity over the glass

cover on the daily productivity of freshwater in the nat-
ural case is modelled where the basin depth is 8 cm. It is
found that the daily productivity increases rapidly with
the increase of wind velocity up to 10 m/s, because
increasing the wind velocity causes a higher tempera-
ture difference between the saltwater surface and the
glass cover, resulting in the increase of evaporation
rate and hence more productivity. However, for values
higher than 10 m/s, the effect of wind velocity dimin-
ishes. For wind velocity over than 10 m/s, the water
temperature decreases simultaneously by increasing
the wind speed, so that the rate of temperature differ-
ence between the water surface and the glass would
also decrease.
4.2.4 Effect of insulation thickness
The effect of the insulation base thickness of the basin
on the daily productivity is presented based on the the-
oretical model shown in Fig. 7, where the wind velocity
and basin depth are assumed to be 2 m/s and 8 cm,
respectively. As expected, the increase in the thick-
ness of the base insulation up to a given thickness
(here 9 mm) results in less heat losses and hence
higher daily productivity. However, for values higher
than 9 mm, increasing the insulation thickness is
not really effective in daily productivity, and hence,
Fig. 7 Effect of insulation thickness of the basin base on
freshwater production
increasing the insulation thickness (higher than 9 mm)
is not economical.
4.3 Effect of different experimental conditions
In this section, the experimental results are presented
to examine the effects of basin depth, forced con-
vection, and solar radiation on the productivity of
freshwater. Figure 8 shows the effect of different exper-
imental conditions (free convection at depths of 3,
4, 5, 6, and 8 cm on sunny days, forced convection
at a depth of 4 cm on sunny days, and free convec-
tion at a depth of 4 cm on cloudy days) on the daily
distillate production. It can be seen from the Fig. 8
that the daily freshwater production decreases signif-
icantly on cloudy days (1.62 l) due to the reduction
in incoming solar radiation. The daily distillate pro-
duction for natural convection and forced convection
at a depth of 4 cm was found to be 3.3 and 4.2 l,

Fig. 8 Comparative analysis of freshwater production

Fig. 6 Effect of wind velocity on freshwater production for different experimental conditions

Proc. IMechE Vol. 225 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

 Mathematical modelling and experimental study of a solar distillation system
respectively. Therefore, the solar radiation intensity
and forced convection have a significant effect on the
distillate production. Also, the experimental results
revealed that in case of forced convection when the
water depth is 4 cm, the daily productivity increases
by 27 per cent (in comparison with free convection).
5 CONCLUSIONS
The mathematical modelling of a single-basin solar
still with a pyramid-shaped glass cover has been anal-
ysed. A 0.9 m2 solar still has been designed and con-
structed. Its performance was evaluated for Mashhad
meteorological weather data. The experimental test rig
has been used to validate the modelling. The compar-
ative analysis showed that both the modelling and the
experimental test results are in good agreement.
The results showed that the basin depth has a signif-
icant effect on the daily freshwater production. When
the basin depth of saltwater is low, the production of
freshwater starts early in the day. However, the saltwa-
ter temperature decreases quickly at night, causing the
distillate production to stop. By increasing the basin
depth, the production of freshwater begins later in the
day but continues after sunset. The optimum depth
for this particular solar still was found to be at 5 cm.
In the study of wind velocity effect, it is found
that the improvement in the distillate production
diminishes at wind velocities higher than 10 m/s.
Increasing the insulation base thickness of basin
increases the daily productivity up to a given value
where more increase in the insulation thickness is not
effective and economical. A small fan has been used to
increase the Reynolds number and therefore improves
the vapour flow and evaporation rate. The daily distil-
late production has been found to be 6.4l at a Reynolds
number of 35 000 (56 per cent increase in freshwater
productivity). The use of a low-cost fan with negligible
power consumption was found to be an effective and
economical way of enhancing the evaporation rate
and therefore freshwater production. The theoretical
and experimental investigations show that a solar still
desalination system is a simple and cheap technol-
ogy that can be used in most areas in Iran, especially
remote areas.
Authors 2011
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volf fan voltage (V)
Vf fan velocity (r/min)
APPENDIX Vwind wind velocity (m/s)
X characteristic length (m)
Notation
absorption coefficient
A area (m2 ) expansion coefficient ( C1 )
C constant coefficient (kg C/m s2 ) emissivity (diffuse coefficient)
Cp specific heat at constant pressure (kJ/kg C) efficiency
D diffusion coefficient of water in air (m2 /s) dynamic viscosity (N s/m2 )
df fan diameter (m) density (kg/m3 )
dh hydraulic diameter (m) StefanBoltzmann constant (W/m2 K4 )
dw saline water depth (m)
Gr Grashof number
Subscripts
h convective heat transfer coefficient
(W/m2 C) a ambient air
Hs solar radiation absorbed by the system b base
(W/m2 ) c free convection
I total solar radiation (W/m2 ) cf forced convection
k thermal conductivity (W/m C) evp evaporation
L latent heat of evaporation (kJ/kg) g glass
m mass (kg) m inside air
m production mass flowrate (kg/m2 s) r radiation
M molecular mass (kg/mol) sky sky
Nu Nusselt number w water

Proc. IMechE Vol. 225 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science