An attempt has been made to design and fabricate a pyramid wick type solar still to produce better distillate yield in the local climatic conditions in Coimbatore, TamilNadu, India. Energy balance equations have been written for temperature elements of the proposed still and explicit expressions for the solution of the equations have been derived. The theoretical equations and numerical calculations has been done for one of the typical days and validated with the experimental observations. Moreover capillary rise and evaporation due to wick portion in the still has been investigated comprehensively. It has been found that the theoretical results are in good agreement with the experimental results. The impact of ambient temperature and glass temperature for the condensation are also discussed. The advantage of pyramid shape on increasing the yield rate and efficiency are also found from the analysis of the still.
Volume 11 | 04-Special Issue
Pages: 1449-1458