Title: The effect of sponge liner on the performance of simple solar still

Authors: T.V. Arjunan, H.S. Aybar, N. Nedunchezhian

Addresses: Automobile Engineering Department, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. ' Mechanical Engineering Department, Eastern Mediterranean University, G. Magosa, Mersin 10, Turkey. ' Automobile Engineering, Institute of Road and Transport Technology, Erode, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: In conventional solar stills, a part of the radiation is reflected by the inner wall surfaces to the still components and the remaining energy is stored by itself. The main objectives of this experimental study are: 1) to utilise the energy available on the inner wall surfaces of a still by using sponge liner; 2) to find the optimum thickness of sponge liner. Two single-slope solar stills are fabricated with an effective area of 0.5 m². The experiments were performed for various thicknesses of sponge liners. It is concluded that: 1) operating temperature of the sponge liner still components is lower than the conventional still components; 2) solar still with 5 mm thick sponge liner gives more yield than the other sponge liner; 3) the sponge liner still reduces the conduction heat losses from inner wall surface to outer wall surfaces through back wall and side wall by 50%.

Keywords: back wall temperature; sponge liners; thickness; yield; internal heat transfer; solar stills; conventional still; productivity; single slope; inner wall; solar energy; solar power; water distillation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRET.2011.039292

International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology, 2011 Vol.2 No.2, pp.169 - 192

Received: 16 Jun 2009
Accepted: 03 Mar 2010

Published online: 21 Feb 2015 *

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