Senger et al. (2011) designed and fabricated a single basin wick type solar desalination (SBWSD).

They carried out the testing at different inclinations for load and no load conditions in winter and summer season. The setup was designed and fabricated with corrugated galvanized iron sheet of 1 m2 as absorber in between the wick strip. Jute was used as wick material, which absorbs the droplets of water from a perforated pipe that provide continuous supply of water to the still. Water from the pipe was carried by the work material along its length. Wick material was laid down on the absorber with sufficient open area for exposing the black side of corrugated absorber as shown in Fig. 1. In no load test, the SBWSD was evaluated without water and they studied the thermal profile inside the heating chamber. In load test, the SBWSD was tested with water as pounding, on wick and at various angle adjustments. In no load test in winter season, maximum inside temperature was 91C, at 1pm when solar intensity was 503 W/m2 ambient temperatures was 31C and outside relative humidity was 45.6%. The corresponding data for summer season are reported to be 94C inside temperature at 2 PM when the intensity was 618 W/m2; ambient temperature was 36.5C and relative humidity of 34.5%. The performance of SBWSD for load and no load condition are shown in Fig 3 and 4. The performance of SBWSD at various angles with wick material is presented in Table 2. They calculated the efficiency of SBWSD to be 47.14% in winter and 56.29% in summer season, which was greater than the bare collector. The angle for maximum efficiency was found to be 10 in summer and 40 in winter. The benefit cost ratio and payback period are reported to be 1.7 and 6 months, respectively.

Fig. 1. Constructional detail of SBWSD (Senger et al. (2011)).

Fig. 2. Performance of SBWSD no load tests in winter (Senger et al. (2011)).

Fig. 3. Performance of SBWSD no load tests in summer (Senger et al. (2011)).

Table 1 Performance of SBWSD at various angles with wick material (Senger et al. (2011)).