Comparative thermal performance evaluation of an active solar distillation system

In this paper, thermal models of all types of solar collector-integrated active solar stills are developed based on basic energy balance equations in terms of inner and outer glass temperatures. In this paper, hourly yield, hourly exergy efficiency, and hourly overall thermal efficiency of active solar stills are evaluated for 0.05 m water depth. All numerical computations had been performed for a typical day in the month of 07 December 2005 for the climatic conditions of New Delhi (28°35′N, 77°12′E, 216 m above MSL). The thermal model of flat-plate collector integrated with active solar still was validated using the experimental test set-up results. Total daily yield from active solar still integrated with evacuated tube collector with heat pipe is 4.24 kg m−2 day−1, maximum among all other types of active solar stills. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.