Performance enhancement of a single basin single slope solar still using agitation effect and external condenser

Solar still is one of the best solutions to solve water scarcity. The major drawback of the still is its low productivity. Improving the evaporation and condensation rate will increase the productivity of the still. In this work, a conventional and a modified single basin single slope solar stills were used for experimental analysis. Two single basin single slope solar still of same dimensions were fabricated. One of the still was attached with a provision to give agitation effect and external condensation. Agitation effect was given by a shaft coupled with a dc motor and an exhaust fan was used to extract the vapor from still to external condenser. Experimentation was carried out to compare the performances of conventional still and the modified still under same atmospheric conditions. The agitation effect breaks the surface boundary layer of water and increases the area of contact between the water and air. The exhaust fan and external condenser enhanced the circulation of air and condensation of vapor. The experimental result shows that the modified still enhanced the distillate productivity by 39.49% as compared to the conventional still. Also modified still is more economical than the conventional still.