International Journal of Ambient Energy

ISSN: 0143-0750 (Print) 2162-8246 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/taen20

Experimental investigation of a passive solar still

with and without tetrahedral sponge in basin

R. Lalitha Narayana & V. Ramachandra Raju

To cite this article: R. Lalitha Narayana & V. Ramachandra Raju (2017): Experimental
investigation of a passive solar still with and without tetrahedral sponge in basin, International
Journal of Ambient Energy, DOI: 10.1080/01430750.2017.1392349

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01430750.2017.1392349

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 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMBIENT ENERGY, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/01430750.2017.1392349

Experimental investigation of a passive solar still with and without tetrahedral

sponge in basin
R. Lalitha Narayanaa and V. Ramachandra Rajub
a Department of Mechanical Engineering, JNTUK, Kakinada, AP, India; b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge
Technologies, Nuzivid, AP, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In this work, an experimental study is carried out to investigate the influence of the presence of porous Received 24 March 2017
media on the performance of solar still. Two different shapes of sponge pieces, namely cube and tetrahe- Accepted 11 October 2017
dron, are considered for this study. Experiments are conducted on a single-slope solar still with condensing KEYWORDS
cover of 30° inclination. This study was performed in Indian coastal climatic condition for 24 h. The experi- Passive solar still; sponge
mental study emphasises on the overall distillate yield, and the efficiency of the still with sponge cubes and cube; geometrical shape;
tetrahedrons is compared with the conventional still. The size of the pieces is selected such that the volume tetrahedral
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of both shapes is the same. As the surface area to volume ratio is more for tetrahedral sponge piece, the
highest distillate production is observed in that of sponge cube. It is observed that the maximum distillate
yield is produced at optimum values of water depth at 5 cm, single piece sponge volume of 216 cm3 and
sponge volume of 30% of the basin water volume. The increase in yield is due to the capillary effect and
high evaporation rate and it varies from 45% to 219% with tetrahedral sponge pieces when compared to
conventional still.

1. Introduction
Fresh water is a necessity for the maintenance of life and also
is the key to human’s wealth. Solar distillation is a process of
separation of pure water from ground water using solar energy.
The advantages of this process are low maintenance, negligible
energy costs as solar energy is used, eco-friendly and uses simple
technology.
The use of solar stills as a cheap and easy method for pro-
viding fresh water dates back to the sixteenth century. The solar
distillation systems are classified as passive and active solar stills
(Raju and Narayana 2016). Since then a lot of work happened in
the field of solar stills. A detailed literature review and descrip-
tion of various types of active, passive, single-effect as well as
multi-effect solar cells is presented in Vishwanath Kumar et al.
(2015). Various parameters required for characterisation of solar
stills are derived in Tiwari and Noor (2007).
Various methods to improve the effectiveness of the solar
still are discussed in Kalidasa Murugavel et al. (2013). Absorb-
ing materials also play an important role in the productivity of
solar stills. For example, using black materials like black rub-
ber, black dye, black ink improves the productivity considerably
(Akash et al. 1998; Nafey et al. 2001). An experimental study
to investigate the design enhancements like preheating feed
water and use of condensers for enhancing condensation is
presented in detail in Khalifa, Al-Jubouri, and Abed (1999). The
process of preheating the water using a flat plate collector is
discussed in Badran and Al-Tahaineh (2005). Various parame-
ters influencing productivity of the solar still and their effects on
the same are detailed in Prakash and Velmurugan (2015). The
studies presented showed that use of condensers and reflec-
tors, maintaining vacuum and use of phase change materials
increase the productivity. The effect of solar collecting area on
the productivity of an active solar still is experimentally studied
in Taghvaei et al. (2015). The studies indicated that an increase
in solar collector area increased the productivity while increas-
ing the brine depth reduced the efficiency. A simple and effi-
cient analytical model for behavioural prediction of solar stills
by taking climatic and operational conditions into consideration
is discussed in Voropoulos, Mathioulakis, and Belessiotis (2003).
It is suggested in Morad, El-Maghawry, and Wasfy (2015) that
use of flash tactic cover cooling will enhance the productivity of
a double-slope passive solar still. The results of numerical sim-
ulations to study the effect of wind speed on the productivity
of active as well as passive solar stills are discussed in El-Sebaii
(2004). The use of fins also enhances the productivity of solar still
greatly (Al-Shabibi and Tahat 2015). Even the use of nanoparti-
cles (Sharshir et al. 2016) and concave solar dish (Kabeel 2008;
Kabeel, Edin, and Alghrubah 2016) enhances the production
of distilled water. Panchal used vacuum tubes to enhance the
quantity of distillate ( 2013). In our previous work (Raju and
Narayana 2016), we studied the effect of flat plate collectors on
the productivity of active solar still with 30° cover inclination.
Also the performance variations of solar still with a change in
glass cover thickness as well as mass flow rate variations in costal
Indian environment are investigated at Kakinada (Raju and
Narayana 2015).

CONTACT R. Lalitha Narayana lalith_narayana@yahoo.com

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

 2 R. LALITHA NARAYANA AND V. RAMACHANDRA RAJU
Mathematical relations are used to model the behaviour of
solar stills. Characteristic equation to predict the behaviour of
a passive solar still using the experimental results is derived in
Dev and Tiwari (2009). The equation takes various factors like
inclination of cover and water depth into consideration to pre-
dict the efficiency. Most of the relations that are used to simu-
late the behaviour of solar still are environment specific. Perfor-
mance of solar still with various modifications like adding con-
densers, preheaters, under local climatic conditions of Jordan
is modelled analytically and experimentally validated in Khal-
ifa, Al-Jubouri, and Abed (1999). The effect of cover tilt angles,
water depth and salinity on the productivity of the solar stills
in Jordan is discussed in Akash, Mohsen, and Nayfeh (2000). An
analytical model to predict the performance of a simple solar
still under different climatic conditions of Oman is presented
in Al-Hinai, Al-Nassri, and Jubran (2002). Thermal aspects of the
model of two types of solar stills, namely pyramidal and single-
slope solar stills, in Aswan City (south of Egypt) are studied
using mathematical model in Fatha et al. (2003). Economic cri-
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teria are also studied in the same. Single-slope solar still was
found more efficient than pyramidal one as mentioned in the
same article.
Multi-effect solar stills are also currently being investigated.
Solar Still – cum – Green House concept is presented in Srivas-
tava, Din, and Tiwari (2000) which demonstrates the use of solar
still for supplying fresh water for plants in hot and humid cli-
mates when the ground water is depleting and available water
is saline. It was also observed that Multi-effect solar stills are
more effective than single-effect solar stills (Goosena et al. 2000).
But economic aspects should also be considered when opting
for a solar still model. Asymmetric and symmetric greenhouse-
type stills are studied in Al-Hayeka and Badran (2004) of which
Asymmetric type solar still is found effective.
The use of porous materials like wicks (Kabeel 2008) and
sponges (Abu-Hijleh and Rababa’h 2003) also enhances still’s
productivity. By varying sponge cube sizes, 18–273% increase
in productivity can be achieved (Abu-Hijleh and Rababa’h
2003; Sharshir et al. 2016). The influence of various absorbers
like sponge cubes is documented in Rabadia (2015). Srithar
(2010) investigated into productivity enhancement methods like
use of vapour adsorption systems, sponge, pebbles and sand.
But during the investigation, the effect of various combina-
tions of materials is investigated but individual materials are
not studied.
Excess heat energy during the sunshine hours can be stored
for the continuation of the process at late evening and night
hours to increment the distillate output in solar stills. This can
be achieved by usage of storage materials in the basin water.
In an article, Panchal reviewed the different energy storage
materials used by various researchers and their performance in
improving the distillate output of solar stills (Hitesh and Pan-
chal 2014). Calcium stones are found more efficient than black
granite and pebbles (Panchal and Shah 2014). Among the eas-
ily available and low-price storage materials like marble stones
and sand stones, sand stones are more productive (Panchal et al.
2017). During the economic analysis on a solar still, Hitesh (Pan-
chal 2016) suggested that an increase in the life span of the
still can lower the unit cost of water. The output yield can be
enhanced by improving absorber performance through the use
of an additional inner storage system. The addition of thin black-
ened sponge liner to the absorber surface can maintain the
adequate operating temperatures inside the solar still even in
low solar isolation conditions (Sellami et al. 2017).
Problem statement
In all the literature that has been surveyed till now, no inves-
tigation has been carried out to study the effect of shape of
the absorber on the productivity of the still. Much interest has
been shown in the use of cubical sponge pieces but other
shapes are not investigated. Thus the investigation into use of
tetrahedral sponge pieces in Indian costal climatic conditions
is planned.
2. Experimental set-up
2.1. Distillation unit
The schematic of single-slope passive solar distillation unit is
shown in Figure 1. Figures 2–4 are the photographs of the set-
up. The experimental set-up consists of a passive solar distillation
unit with condensing cover inclination of 30°. The bottom sur-
face of the still is painted Nichrome black for greater absorptivity.
The height of lower vertical wall of still was kept at 0.30 m to
avoid the spilling of basin water into the distillate channel and
to prevent the contact of distillation channel with the condens-
ing cover as well as with the water level. The height of higher
vertical wall was kept as 0.88 m. The effective basin area of still is
1 m × 1 m and it is made of FRP of 6 mm thickness, which pro-
vides insulation for heat flow. The condensing cover made of
long plain glass of 4 mm is fixed to the top of the vertical wall of
the still using a rubber gasket. The yield from the still is collected
through a channel, fixed at the height of the smaller vertical wall
of the basin. A hose pipe is connected to this channel to collect
the yield to a measuring jar.
2.2. Procedure
The experiments were performed in summer climatic condition
of 2016 in JNTUK, Kakinada (16°93 N/83°33 E), Andhra Pradesh,
India. April and May are usually the hottest months of the year in
this region and typical results for 24 days during the period have
been reported here. Each experiment is conducted on 24 h basis
starting from 8.00 a.m. The experiments were carried out on
Figure 1. Schematic of the passive solar still with sponge tetrahedrons.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMBIENT ENERGY 3
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Figure 2. Photograph of the experimental passive solar still.

Figure 3. Photograph of side view of solar still and sponge cubes.

Figure 4. Photograph of solar still with sponge tetrahedrons.

 4 R. LALITHA NARAYANA AND V. RAMACHANDRA RAJU

Table 1. Parameters studied. Table 2. Ranges and least counts of measuring instruments.

Length of the Volume of Volume of sponge S. No Instrument Least count Range Error (%)
Water Length of the side of sponge cube to tetrahedral to that
1 Thermocouple 0.1°C 0–100°C 0.2
depth side of sponge tetrahedral that of the basin of the basin water
2 Solarimeter 1 W/m2 0–5000 W/m2 0.25
(cm) cube(cm) sponge (cm) water (%) (%)
3 Thermometer 1°C 0–100°C 0.5
2.0 4.0 08.0 10.0 10.0 4 Hygrometer 1 0–100% 1
3.0 5.0 10.0 20.0 20.0 5 Measuring jar 1 ml 0–1000 ml 5
4.0 6.0 12.0 30.0 30.0
5.0 7.0 14.0 40.0 40.0
6.0 – – – –
in following distillation efficiency:

mew L
ηD =  × 100.
alternate days. The glass inclination of 30° was fixed for all exper- Ag I(t)
iments. The same still was used for all experiments. The still with-
out sponge (Configuration I) was used as a reference to compare
the changes in still performance of other two configurations,
3. Results and discussion
Figure 5 shows the variation in yield with five basin water depths
Configuration II: Solar Still with sponge cubes in conventional solar still and with sponge cubes and tetrahe-
Configuration III: Solar Still with tetrahedral sponge pieces drons. The maximum yield was obtained at a water depth of 4 cm
for conventional still, whereas the less yield was obtained at 2, 3,
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During testing, the number of sponges used and the size of
the sponges are kept constant during all cases for all the configu-
rations. Various parameters studied for the three configurations
are listed in Table 1. All results presented herein will be discussed
in terms distillate yield and efficiency of the still with sponge
cubes and tetrahedrons to that of the still without sponge at
the end of the each experiment. This was very important, since
the experiments were conducted outdoors, and thus, the solar
and ambient conditions could not be controlled or repeated
from one experiment to another. Thus, no solar isolation mea-
surements were made nor included in this paper. The use of a
reference still negated the effect of change in solar and ambi-
ent conditions. This facilitated the comparison between the dif-
ferent still configurations tested even though the experiments
were conducted at different days under different conditions.
The experimental study focused mainly on the overall dis-
tillate yield, and the efficiency of the still with sponge cubes
and tetrahedrons is compared to that of the reference still. The
glass cover outer and inner surfaces, vapour, basin water, sponge
and ambient temperatures, incident radiation on glass cover,
as well as accumulated distillate, were measured every hour
during each experiment for passive solar still. These data were
intended for comparison with a proposed mathematical model
for the still with sponge cubes and tetrahedrons. Table 1 lists the
different parameters studied. When studying the effect of
a given parameter, the other parameters were constant at
reference value.
The main characteristics of the sponge cubes and tetrahe-
drons used were: pink in colour, density of 51 kg/m3 and void
fraction of 88%. When using all the reference parameters above,
approximately 20% and 70% of the height of the sponge cubes
5 and 6 cm water depth. It is clear from the above that the water
depth of 4 cm is the optimum water depth among the five. This is
due to the reasons that less heat storage capacity and more heat
drop for the 0.02 and 0.03 m water depth and more time require-
ment for heat storage for 0.05 and 0.06 m water depth compared
to 0.04 m water depth.
With absorbing material, which in the present case is sponge,
the optimum level is found to be 5 cm. The optimum level is
found to be irrespective of the shape of the absorbing material.
This is because, increasing depth of the water level will cause
the soaked sponge to become more immersed resulting in lesser
distance for the water to rise through sponge. These results in
comparatively higher flow rate of water through sponge and
thus more water will be in contact with solar irradiation. But
as the level further increases after an optimal level, the depth
to which sponges get immerse will not change, thus further
increase in water depth did not have any effect. This optimal
depth for the considered configuration is experimentally found
to be 5 cm.
Greater the yield, greater is the efficiency. The variation in
efficiency should be, thus similar to that of the yield and it was
found to be the same. Figure 6 shows the variation of distilla-
tion efficiency for the five water depths in conventional solar
still and the presence of sponge cubes and tetrahedrons. The
maximum efficiency of conventional still is 15.02% at the opti-
mum water depth of 0.04 m. The still with sponge tetrahedrons is
4.5
Conventional
4
Sponge Cube
3.5
Sponge Tetrahedron
Yield in Kg

3
and tetrahedral sponge respectively, were above the basin water 2.5
level. Table 2 gives the characteristics of various instruments 2
used. 1.5
1
0.5
2.3. Distillate efficiency 0
2 3 4 5 6
The distillation efficiency (ηD ) of the solar still has been defined Water Depth in cm
as the ratio of distilled water produced to the total solar radiation
energy received. Integration over a given period of time results Figure 5. Variation of yield with respect to basin water depth and solar still.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMBIENT ENERGY 5

20 Conventional Sponge Cube Sponge Tetrahedron 4.5 Conventional

18 4 Sponge Cube
16 3.5 Sponge Tetrahedron

Yield in Kg
14 3
Efficiency in %

2.5
12 2
10 1.5
8 1
6 0.5
0
4 10 20 30 40
2 Volume of sponge in %
0
2 3 4 5 6
Figure 8. Variation of yield with respect to volume of sponge and solar still.
Water Depth in cm

Figure 6. Variation of efficiency with respect to basin water depth and solar still.

more efficient compared to still with sponge cubes at each water
depth. The maximum efficiency of still with sponge cubes and
tetrahedrons is 16.53% and 17.35% respectively, and is obtained
at a water depth of 5 cm. It may be noted that the efficiency
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the sponge size. The crest of the U curve indicates the optimal
size of the sponge piece edge for the configuration considered.
The efficiency variation is also in the same pattern and is shown
in Figure 7.
The variation of the yield with the total volume faction of

as well as yield depends on the solar irradiation intensity and
ambient conditions also.
At the optimum depth obtained from the previous experi-
mentation for configurations II and III, the effect of variation of
size of sponge pieces is studied for both configurations. The size
of sponge piece is chosen such that the volume of each piece of
sponge for both tetrahedral and cube is maintained the same as
well as total volume of the sponge is also maintained the same
in both the configurations. The sponge volume corresponds to
10% of the total volume for various water depths.
Figure 7 shows the effect of volume of single sponge piece on
the performance of the still. Tetrahedral shape performed well
and in both cases (configurations II and III) as the volume of the
sponge cube increases till 216 cm3 , it is observed that the yield
increases. But after that the yield drops. This behaviour is primar-
ily due to capillary effect as indicated in Abu-Hijleh and Rababa’h
(2003). Larger the size of the sponge piece, larger will be the cap-
illary forces that will be required to make the water rise in the
sponge and thus slower will be water rise resulting in lower yield.
But at the same time, as the sponge size increases, the depth to
which they get immerse will increase. The combined effect will
result in an inverted U curve when yield of still is plotted w.r.t.
sponge is plotted in Figure 8 for both shapes. Based on the
figure, it can be observed that as the volume fraction of the
sponges in water increases, the yield increased till 30% but after
that the yield dropped. This is primarily because of two counter
effects, namely (1) an increase in the sponges leads to an increase
in the wetted area and thus an increase in the area of evap-
oration, and (2) an increase in sponge pieces leads to greater
reflection and thus heat loss. These are the effects causing an
initial increase and then decrease, indicating that 30% volume
fraction of sponges is the optimal value. At the optimal volume
fraction, an increase of 219% with tetrahedral sponge pieces
and 172% with cubical sponge pieces in yield is observed when
compared to that of conventional solar still.
Figure 9 shows the change in the efficiency of still with the
percentage volume of the sponge cubes and tetrahedrons and
compared with conventional still. Efficiency variations were also
similar to yield variation with respect to total volume fraction
of sponge cubes and tetrahedrons. An increase of around 3.5%
efficiency is observed at 30% volume fraction of sponge.
Another important factor observed here is that, with tetra-
hedral sponge pieces, the output is observed to be more. This
can be observed based on various characteristics plotted in the

4 20
3.8 18
3.6 16
Total yield per day (kg)

3.4 14
Effiency (%)

3.2 12
3 10
2.8 8
2.6 6
2.4 Yield of Sponge Cube 4
Yield of Tetrahedron
2.2 Efficiency of Sponge cube 2
efficiency of tetrahedron
2 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Volume of the sponge peice (cm3)

Figure 7. Variation of yield and efficiency with respect to volume of single sponge piece.
 6 R. LALITHA NARAYANA AND V. RAMACHANDRA RAJU
20 Conventional Sponge Cube
Efficiency in %
15
10
5
0 We are very thankful to JNTUK, Kakinada, for providing the experimental
10 20 30
Volume of sponge in %
Figure 9. Variation of efficiency with respect to volume of sponge and solar still.
Table 3. Comparative analysis of samples.
Sample PH TDS (mg/l)
Initial characteristics of the sample 10 800
Final characteristics of the sample 6 15
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previous discussions. This increase is primarily because tetrahe-
dral shapes have greater surface area to volume ratio. Another
important reason is that the amount of height for the same vol-
ume to raise will be less in tetrahedral when compared to a
cubical shape. This is due to inclined surfaces of tetrahedron.
Based on the experimental results, at the optimal depth of water
(4 cm for conventional and 5 cm with sponge pieces) and opti-
mal volume fraction (30%) the yield with tetrahedral sponge
pieces is found to be 4.28 kg while with that of cubical sponges
it is 3.73 kg and that of conventional still is 1.37 kg. Thus the use
of tetrahedral sponge pieces is more advisable when compared
to that of cubical ones.
The characteristics of the initial and final samples are indi-
cated in Table 3. The pH, total dissolved salt, hardness and elec-
trical conductivity values of the distilled sample are much lower
and in acceptable limits compared to the original sample.
4. Conclusions
The experimental investigations, to study the effect of shape
of the absorbing material on the performance of solar sills, are
presented and compared with the conventional solar still. In
this work, two different shapes, namely tetrahedral and cubi-
cal shapes are tested. From the experiments, it is observed that
the optimal water depth of 5 cm is independent of the shape of
the sponge. As the dimensions of sponge piece increased, it is
observed that up to a sponge volume of 216 cm3 , the output
is increased and then dropped for both shapes. At this point,
tetrahedral pieces produced 25% more yield when compared
with that of sponge cubes. The combination of 5 cm water depth,
single sponge piece volume of 216 cm3 and the total sponge vol-
ume fraction of 30% gives the best possible performance. At this
arrangement, 219% increase in yield with tetrahedral sponge
pieces and 172% increase with sponge cubes are observed.
Tetrahedral sponge pieces recorded the highest output when
compared with sponge cubes. At the optimal water level and
volume fraction of sponge pieces, the yield is 15% more with
tetrahedral pieces when compared with that of sponge cubes.
All the above factors indicate that efficiency of a solar still with
Sponge Tetrahedron tetrahedral pieces is more than that with sponge cubes. This
increase in efficiency can be attributed to higher surface to vol-
ume ratio and more capillary effect of tetrahedral shape when
compared with that of cubical shape.
Acknowledgement
40 facilities. Our thanks are extended to Dr. S. Ramesh Babu, Secretary and Cor-
respondent, Swarnandhra, Narsapur, for his kind cooperation at every stage
of our work.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Total
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