Development and experimental study of an improved basin type vertical single distillation cell solar still

This paper presents an experimental study on basin type solar still having tilted double glass cover and having single vertical distillation cell consisting of two closely spaced vertical parallel plates, at the backwall. The feed water side of plate was covered with partitioned wick structure and individual feed water channels were used for each of the partitioned wick structure areas to ensure uniform wetting of wick. In order to increase the productivity of proposed improved still, the temperature drop across the distillation cell was maintained low by controlling the cooling of second plate by placing a third external vertical plate at a gap of 25 mm from second plate of distillation cell. The cumulative efficiency of the proposed improved still with 10 mm partition gap was found to be 10-15% (magnitude) higher than that of the conventional basin type still of same basin area and glass cover area.