article · Water
Solar distillers purify saltwater using solar energy, but traditional flat-basin designs often suffer from limited evaporation rates. To address this, a modified double-slope solar distiller was developed using a prismatic absorber basin lined with linen wicks to enlarge the surface area available for vaporisation. The system also incorporates dual parallel spraying nozzles beneath the glass cover to feed saltwater in a thin film over the wicks, accelerating heat transfer and boosting evaporation and condensation. In outdoor summer testing in Tanta, Egypt, this redesigned distiller delivered 8.20 kilograms of distilled water per square metre daily, outperforming a standard double-slope distiller by nearly fifty per cent. Thermal assessments showed an energy efficiency improvement of over forty-eight per cent and more than double the exergy efficiency, alongside an eleven per cent reduction in production cost per litre.
Access to clean drinking water is an urgent challenge, particularly in arid, sun-rich regions. Solar distillation offers an off-grid, renewable route to desalination. By demonstrating that structural enhancements, including textured basins, wicks, and spray feeds, can significantly increase freshwater yields while reducing production costs, this research supports the development of more practical, cost-effective water treatment systems.
This work represents an applied and tested design for decentralised solar desalination. The technology could serve off-grid settlements, small farms, or coastal users needing low-cost, self-contained water treatment. Having been validated through functional outdoor prototypes and life-cycle cost analyses, the system demonstrates clear performance gains, though moving towards commercial use would require long-term durability testing, scaling, and operational assessments regarding nozzle maintenance and wick degradation.
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Increasing the evaporation zone inside the solar distiller (SD) is a pivotal method for augmenting its freshwater production. Hence, in this work, a newly designed prismatic absorber basin covered by linen wicks was utilized instead of the conventional flat absorber basin to increase the surface area of the vaporization zone in a double-slope solar distiller (DSSD). Meanwhile, for further enhancement of modified DSSD performance, dual parallel spraying nozzles are incorporated underneath the glass cover as a saltwater feed supply to minimize the thickness of the saltwater film on the wick, which enhances the heating process of the wick surface and, consequently, the evaporation and condensation processes are improved. Two double slope distillers, namely a double slope solar distiller with wick prismatic basin and dual parallel spraying nozzles (DSSD-WPB&DPSN) and a traditional double slope solar distiller (TDSSD), are made and tested in the outdoor summer conditions of Tanta, Egypt (31° E and 30.5° N). A comparative energic–exergic-economic analysis of the two proposed solar stills is also conducted, in terms of the cumulative distillation yield, daily energy efficiency, daily exergy efficiency, and cost per liter of distilled yield. The present results show that the cumulative distillation yield of the DSSD-WPB&DPSN was 8.20 kg/m2·day, which is higher than that of the TDSSD by 49.64%. Furthermore, the energy and exergy efficiencies were increased by 48.51% and 118.10%, respectively, relative to TDSSD. Additionally, the life cost assessment reveals that the cost per liter of the distilled yield of the DSSD-WPB&DPSN is decreased by 11.13% compared to the TDSSD.
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DOI: 10.3390/w15030610
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