Kumar and Kasturi Bai (2007) worked on a vertical basin solar still with improved condensation technique.

The condensation occurred to temperature difference not only on the glass surface but also on side walls. Thus provided additional condensation surface on the sidewalls of the still to enhance the distillate yield and the efficiencies of the still. They conducted the experiment in two stages as preliminary and performance experiments. In preliminary experiment, they determined rate of evaporation of the samples related to temperature, solar insolation and humidity in an open rectangular cement basin (0.5 m2) with black absorbing surface. In performance experiment a basin type still (0.5 m2) was designed with provision for water circulation to have condensation effect on all the side walls. The inner wall of still was constructed with mild steel sheet of dimension 67 67 cm2 and coated with mat black paint to absorb the maximum amount of sunlight for converting it into heat. Aluminium tube (length 72 cm and diameter 0.5 cm) with three turns was welded on the walls of iron surface for cooling channel arrangement. The glass cover was slanted at an angle of 15 positioned on the top in a northsouth direction. The bottom and iron walls were insulated with glass wool of 4 cm and 3 cm, respectively, for reduction in heat loss. The experiment was conducted with and without condensation side walls. The data for each of these two cases were noted and compared for two different sample temperatures (25C and 65C). In the performance experimentation, they showed that the rise in the efficiency was for pre-heated sample (65C) compared to that of the other. And the highest efficiency of 30.41% was reached in tap water for both sample temperature conditions (25C and 65C). The maximum daily production of the solar still is reported to be about 1.4 L/m2.d, and its efficiency was about 30% with corresponding average solar insolation of 28 MJ/day. Further they report that the condensate water quality was found to be comparable with rain water and mineral water even when different samples such as tap water, seawater and dairy industry effluent were used.

Fig. 1. Preliminary experiment arrangement (Kumar and Kasturi (2007)).