Open Access

ARTICLE

Mathematical Analysis of a New Design for Cascade Solar Still

by M. Bouzaid¹, M. Oubrek, O. Ansari, A. Sabri, M. Taha-Janan

1 Laboratoire de Mécanique Appliquée et Technologies, Centre de Recherche en Sciences et Technologies Industrielles et de la Santé, ENSET, Mohammed V University in RABAT, Avenue de l’Armée Royale, BP 6207 Rabat-Instituts, MOROCCO

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2016, 12(1), 15-32. https://doi.org/10.3970/fdmp.2016.012.015

Abstract

Fresh water available on earth is very scared. Yet the demand of fresh water is incessantly increasing, due to population growth and rapid industrialization. According to the United Nations, in 2025, 63% of the world’s population will be living in scarce water areas. The provision of freshwater is becoming a gradually more important issue in many areas of the world. Oceans are the only available source for large amount of water. Ocean water presents high salinity, so there is a need to desalinate ocean water for everyday consumption. Solar stills are widely used in solar desalination for being very simple devices, easy to fabricate and require only few maintenance. In this paper, a new approach to design a solar still absorber plate was developed and the effect of this design on the productivity was investigated theoretically. A mathematical model was developed to calculate the theoretical productivity of the solar still. The energy balance equations for the various elements of the solar still are formulated and numerically solved using the dynamic simulation program Matlab/SimulinkTM. The performance of the still was investigated. The results show that the thermal performance of a modified stepped solar still can be considerably improved through new introduced modifications.

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