Numerical and experimental study of a passive solar still integrated with an external condenser

This paper presents a numerical and experimental investigation to study the effect of the condenser area on the Natural Circulation Loop (NCL) solar still features under typical summer and winter conditions. A computer code has been developed to predict the transient thermal behaviour of the still. This computer code is used to predict the effect of condenser area and wind velocity, on the still daily yield in summer and winter conditions. The results revealed that the still daily productivity increases with the increase of the condenser area until a critical value beyond which its effect becomes insignificant. In addition, it was found that the wind effect is more effective for small condenser area. The simulation shows that the maximum daily output of NCL solar still, under summer and winter conditions, can reach 4.73 kg/m2 and 2.71 kg/m2, respectively.