DESALINATION

ELSEVIER Desalination 180 (2005) 285-289

www.elsevier.com/locate/desal

An experimental study on an inclined solar water

distillation system
Hikmet $. Aybar*, Fuat Egeliofglu, U. Atikol
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eastern Mediterranean University,
G. Magosa, North Cyprus, Mersin 10 Turkey
Tel. +90 (392) 630-1451 Fax: +90 (392) 365-3715; email: hikmet.aybar@emu.edu.tr

Received 5 October 2004; accepted 25 January 2005

Abstract
An inclined solar water distillation system was designed and tested under actual environmental conditions of
northern Cyprus. Unlike solar still systems, the feed water falls down on the solar absorber plate, and the system
produces fresh water and hot water simultaneously. It was suspected that the longer the flowing water is held on the
absorber plate, the greater the rate of evaporation, leading to an increase in the amount of distilled water. Therefore,
the system was tested with three variants: bare plate, black-cloth wick, and black-fleece wick. As was expected, the
wicks increased the fresh water generation by two or three times of a bare plate. The hot water temperature was good
enough for domestic usage.

Keywords: Solar distillation; Solar hot water; Wick

1. Introduction
There is an urgent need for clean, pure drink-
ing water in many countries. Often water sources
are brackish (i.e., containing dissolved salts) and/
or contain harmful bacteria and therefore cannot
be used for drinking. In addition, there are many
coastal locations where seawater is abundant but
potable water is not available. Pure water is also
needed in some industries, hospitals, and schools.
*Corresponding author.
Distillation is one o f many processes that can be
used for water purification. Solar radiation can be
the source o f heat energy. In this process, water is
evaporated, thus separating water vapor from
dissolved substances, and is then condensed as
pure water.
Solar still distillation is a natural phenomenon
on earth. Solar energy heats water in the seas and
lakes, evaporates it, and condenses it as clouds to
return to earth as rainwater. Basin-type solar still
systems replicate this natural phenomenon on a

0011-9164/05/$- See front matter 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
doi: 10.1016/j.desal.2005.01.009
286 H. ~Aybar et aL / Desalination 180 (2005) 285-289
small scale, and are the most common method for
solar water distillation. In a basin-type solar wick
still, the feed water is absorbed slowly by a
porous radiation-absorbing pad (the wick). Two
advantages are claimed over basin stills. First, the
wick can be tilted, so that the feed water presents
a more suitable angle to the sun (reducing reflec-
tion and presenting a large effective area).
Second, less feed water is in the still at any time,
and thus the water is heated more quickly and to
a higher temperature. Simple basin-type solar
wick stills are more efficient than common basin-
type solar stills, and some designs are claimed to
be less costly than a basin-type solar still of the
same output [1].
In this experimental study, an inclined solar
water distillation (ISWD) system was designed
and tested. The ISWD system consists of an in-
clined flat solar absorber plate covered with glass.
Water dripping onto the absorber plate creates a
continuous film of water. The heating and evapo-
rating processes take place on the absorber plate,
and then the condensing process takes place on
the glass cover. The most important feature of the
system is the fact that the system produces hot
water while it produces fresh drinking water. The
heated water can be used as domestic hot water if
it is not too briny. To increase evaporation a
porous medium is used.
2. System description
Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of an ISWD
system, which consists mainly of an absorber
plate and a glass cover that creates a cavity. The
cavity length, width, and height are 1 m, 1 m, and
0.2 m, respectively. The absorber plate is made of
galvanized steel, and painted to form a matt black
surface (absorptivity of about 0.96 and, emis-
sivity of about 0.08). However, all metal parts of
the system that come into contact with water are
preferably made of stainless steel, copper, or
brass because of better resistance to corrosion. A
black-wick is laid on the absorber plate in order
to distribute water evenly on the plate and to
increase the thickness of the water film. The
absorber plate is insulated from the bottom to
prevent heat losses. The cavity is covered with
3-mm glass (transmissivity of about 0.88). The
system is inclined to an angle of 30 in order to
make the dripping water run down on the ab-
sorber plate and to increase the amount of solar
radiation reaching the surface aperture more
frequently during the day. The feed water comes
from an intermediate tank and goes into a distri-
bution pipe (diameter of 11 ram) which has a
longitudinal slot of 2 mm. The water then falls
through this slot onto the black absorber plate or
onto the black wick, creating a layer of water all
over the absorber plate. Solar energy warms the
absorber plate. Some of the water evaporates and
condenses as it touches the cool glass cover. The
condensate flows into a condensate channel and
is taken out of the side of the cavity. The rest of
the feed water, which is hot water, flows into
another collection channel called the remaining
water channel. The hot water is taken out from
the bottom center of the remaining water channel.
The fresh water and hot water are collected in
separate tanks.
3. Results of tests and discussion
Fig. 2 shows the system without the glass
cover and black wick. As seen in this figure, the
feed water falls onto the absorber plate (i.e., bare
plate); however, the water running down on the
plate is not evenly distributed over the width of
the plate. This is due to the deformation of the
plate caused by its increasing temperature. Thus,
two types of black wicks are used: a kind of black
plain cloth, and black fleece with approximately
2-cm-long fur. Then the system was tested with
three variants: bare plate, black cloth, and black
fleece. The experiments were repeated four times
for each case between the hours of 9:00 am and
 H. ~Aybar et al, / Desalination 180 (2005) 285-289 287

\
/

.... . \
J

I a J ~.... i
i /

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the inclined

solar water distillation system.

Fig. 2. Inclined solar water distillation

system without glass cover and black wick.

4:00 pm through the 17th to 30th of May, 2004,
consecutively. The ambient air temperatures dur-
ing the sunny days were measured between 25C
and 26C, and the meteorological data show that
the average solar intensity is between 400-
500 W/m 2 [2]. In the tests, the temperatures of the
hot water and air inside the cavity were measured
with thermocouples. The fresh water and hot
water were accumulated in small tanks, and were
measured.
Table 1 shows the measured parameters of the
tests. The tests for the bare plate show the effect
of mass flow rate on the fresh water generation.
Namely, test #2 and #4 have low mass flow rates
when compared to tests # 1 and #3. Thus, the fresh
water generation is higher in tests #2 and #4 than
in tests # 1 and #3. As seen in this table, the fresh
water generation increases when the black-cloth
wick and black-fleece wick are used because of
the even distribution o f water on the absorber
288 H. ~Aybar et al. / Desalination 180 (2005) 285-289

Table 1
Amounts of fresh and hot water obtained from testing

Test # Fresh water Hot water Inlet water mass flow rate
(mI) (ml) (ml/min)
Bare plate:
(1) 930 47,400 115.0
(2) 1265 35,875 88.4
(3) 830 51,000 123.4
(4) 1290 37,925 93.4
Black cloth:
(5) 1705 43,050 106.5
(6) 1090 51,250 124.6
(7) 1180 46,125 112.6
(8) 1380 41,000 100.9
Black fleece:
(9) 2565 46,125 115.9
(10) 2795 48,175 121.3
(11) 2995 44,075 112.0
(12) 2840 47,150 119.0

Table 2
Temperatures of water and air inside the cavity (in C) during the day

Time Bare plate Black cloth Black fleece

Hot water Air Hot water Air Hot water Air

09:00 40.9 46.9 39.2 45.1 40.6 45.1

10:00 52.2 50.0 42.9 39.9 47.4 45.7
I 1:00 57.6 55.3 44.7 42.2 49.5 47.5
12:00 57.4 55.5 47.9 45.4 53.9 48.7
13:00 56.4 54.8 49.1 47.1 51.1 47.3
14:00 53.1 51.3 46.3 43.7 49.8 46.1
15:00 48.0 44.7 40.4 38.8 47.1 44.4
16:00 41.0 38.6 39.4 37.7 44.7 42.1

plate, increasing flowing-down time of the water
from the top to bottom o f the plate, and a larger
heat transfer surface area. The results were of
course also affected by environmental conditions,
such as changing solar intensity, ambient temper-
ature, and wind. A similar system has been tested
by RSD Rosendahl System [3], and they report
that fresh water generation is between 2-8 kg/d.
In this study, the tests were performed for 7 h.
If we consider the day-time from sunrise to sun-
set, day-time will increase to 10, even 12 h for a
day in the summer under northern Cyprus con-
ditions. Table 2 shows the variations of the hot
water temperature and the air temperature in the
cavity during the day. These are the average
values of the four tests. The most important
 H . ~ A y b a r et al. / Desalination 180 (2005) 285-289
observation about the results is the temperature
difference between the water temperature and the
cavity air temperature, which is between 2C and
4C. The temperature of hot water is good
enough for domestic usage.
The feed water that comes from the main
reservoir tank is 4060-brackish feed water (i.e.,
4060 ppm). With the bare plate the hardness of
fresh water is about 42 ppm. With the black-cloth
wick and the black-fleece, the hardness of the
fresh water was measured as 79 ppm and
140 ppm, respectively.
4. Conclusions
An ISWD system was designed and tested
under actual environmental conditions of nor-
them Cyprus. The feed water falls on the solar
absorber plate. The system generates fresh water
289
and hot water simultaneously, which are col-
lected. The system was tested with three variants:
bare plate, black-cloth wick, and black-fleece
wick. The effects of the wicks were observed.
The fresh water generation rate increased two to
three times when wicks were used instead of a
bare plate.
References
[ 1] IntermediateTechnologyDevelopmentGroup,http://
www.itdg.org/html/technical_enquiries/docs/solar_
distillation.pdf.
[2] M. Onen, A comparative study for MSF and MEE
desalination systems using alternative energy sour-
ces, MS Thesis, Department of Mechanical Engi-
neering, Eastern Mediterranean University, 2004.
[3] RSD Rosendahl System, Inc., http://www.rscsolar.
de/grundprinzip_e.htm.