Performance enhancement of a single basin solar still with flow of water from an air cooler on the cover

The annual performance of a conventional solar still, with water from the tank of an air cooler, flowing over the cover, has been computed for four different climatic zones in Indian plains. It is seen that the annual yield can be increased between 41.3% and 56.5%. The increase in annual efficiency is between 7.4% and 9.9%. Increase in yield is the largest for hot and dry climate of Jodhpur and the least for warm and humid climate of Chennai. Moreover the distillate output increases slightly with increase in mass flow rate and tends to saturate around 0.075 kg/s. These figures are indicative of the viability of the concept. Cost of additional water produced by flow of water from the desert cooler over the cover with two solar stills working together is between Rs. 0.60/l for hot and dry climate to Rs. 0.78/l for warm and humid climate. (U.S.D. 1.00 = Rs. 62.50)