Productivity enhancements of compound parabolic concentrator tubular solar stills

• Main Authors: Thirugnanasambantham, Arunkumar, Velraj, Ramalingam, Denkenberger, David C., Sathyamurthy, Ravishankar, Kumar, K. Vinoth, Ahsan, Amimul
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2016
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/43353/1/Productivity%20enhancements%20of%20compound%20parabolic%20concentrator%20tubular%20solar%20stills.pdf; http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/43353/; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148115304729

The performance of compound parabolic concentrator assisted tubular solar still (CPC-TSS) and compound parabolic concentrator-concentric tubular solar still (CPC-CTSS) (to allow cooling water) with different augmentation systems were studied. A rectangular saline water trough of dimension 2 m × 0.03 m × 0.025 m was designed and fabricated. The effective collector area of the still is 2 m × 1 m with five sets of tubular still – CPC collectors placed horizontally with north-south orientation. Hot water taken from the CPC-CTSS was integrated to a pyramid type and single slope solar still. Diurnal variations of water temperature, air temperature, cover temperature and distillate yield were recorded. The results showed that, the productivity of the un-augmented CPC-TSS and CPC-CTSS were 3710 ml/day and 4960 ml/day, respectively. With the heat extraction technique, the productivity of CPC-CTSS with a single slope solar still and CPC-CTSS with a pyramid solar still were found as 6460 ml/day and 7770 ml/day, respectively. The process integration with different systems cost was found slightly higher but the overall efficiency and the produced distilled water yield was found augmented.