An experimental investigation of the novel standalone vapour-based multistage solar still with stacked stages

Abstract

This work presents 2 days of experimental test results of the novel standalone vapour-based multistage solar still with stacked stages (MSS-SS) for the spring season. MSS-SS desalinate saline water (SW) through a series of stacked stages driven by solar energy. The study seeks to contribute to the body of knowledge in the field of solar energy desalination. It also introduces an MSS-SS aimed at minimizing maintenance requirements, thus, allowing these devices a prolonged and uninterrupted operation. Further, it presents a novel configuration with waterless stages that make the condensing assembly lightweight and easy to handle. The work was a developmental study conducted through experimental observation, data collection and analysis to obtain results. It was found that the continuous mode of thermal energy input caused thermal damage conditions, marginal distillate yield enhancement of 7.27% for the average solar radiation increment of 52.03%, thermal energy storage was required due to the larger collector-to-basin area ratio and insufficient thermal energy storage capacity in the SW due to its limited quantity. A 5,090 and 5,460 mL daily cumulative distillate yield for the impulsive and continuous modes were recorded, respectively. The study’s benefit will be enabling remote geographical areas to easily produce freshwater from SW.