Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 876881

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Enhancing the stepped solar still performance using internal

and external reectors
Z.M. Omara a, A.E. Kabeel b,, M.M. Younes a
a
b

Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh, Egypt

Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University, Tanta, Egypt

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Available online 18 October 2013
Keywords:
Solar still
Solar desalination
Stepped solar still
Productivity enhancement
Reectors

a b s t r a c t
The performance of stepped solar still with internal and external reectors have been investigated in the
current study. The reectors are used to enhance energy input to the stepped still. The inuence of internal and external (top and bottom) reectors on the performance of the stepped solar still is investigated.
A comparison between modied stepped solar still and conventional solar still is carried out to evaluate
the developed desalination system performance under the same climate conditions. The results indicated
that, during experimentation the productivity of the modied stepped solar still with internal and external (top and bottom) reectors is higher than that for conventional still approximately by 125%. In this
case the estimated cost of 1 l of distillate for stepped still with reectors and conventional solar stills
is approximately 0.031$ and 0.049$, respectively.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
One of the viable options to deal with the water problem is the
conversion of saline water to potable water through water desalination by solar energy. Solar stills represent a most attractive and
simple technique among other distillation processes. Given all
their merits, solar stills face the problem of low productivity compared to their costs.
The various factors affecting the productivity of solar still [1] are
solar intensity, wind velocity, ambient temperature, waterglass
temperature difference, free surface area of water, absorber plate
area, temperature of inlet water, glass angle and depth of water.
The solar intensity, wind velocity, ambient temperature cannot
be controlled as they are metrological parameters. Whereas the
remaining parameters can be varied to enhance the productivity
of the solar stills. Many modications have been done to increase
the productivity of distillate of a basin type still, reviewed by [1,2].
Depth of water in the solar still inversely affects the productivity of the solar still. Investigations indicated that a reduction of the
brine depth in the still improves the productivity, mainly due to
the higher basin temperature. For maintaining minimum depth,
wicks, plastic water purier and stepped solar still were used. So
that stepped solar stills can increase the distillate productivity
about conventional solar stills, many reports studied the performance of stepped solar still [37].

Corresponding author. Tel.: +20 1001543587; fax: +20 403453860.

E-mail address: Kabeel6@hotmail.com (A.E. Kabeel).
0196-8904/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2013.07.092

Velmurugan et al. [3,4] studied the augmentation of saline

streams in solar stills integrated with a mini solar pond. Industrial
efuent was used as feed for n type single basin solar still and
stepped solar still, maximum increase in productivity of 100% was
obtained when the n type solar still was integrated with pebble
and sponge. An attempt was made to enhance the productivity of
the solar stills by connecting a mini solar pond, stepped solar still
and a single basin solar still in series. The results showed that, when
ns and sponges are used in both the solar stills a maximum increase
in productivity of 80% is obtained. In addition, Velmurugan et al. [5]
used a stepped still and a settling tank to desalinate the textile efuent. A maximum increase in productivity of 98% is reported in
stepped solar still when n, sponge and pebbles are used in this basin.
A weir-type cascade solar still, integrated with latent heat thermal
energy storage system, was designed with the view of enhancing
productivity [6]. A heat storage system with 18 kg mass (2 cm thickness) of parafn wax beneath the absorber plate was used, to keep
the operating temperature of the still high enough to produce distillated water during the lack of sunshine, particularly at night.
Kabeel et al. [7] conducted experiments on two solar stills
simultaneously; a conventional single sloped solar still and a modied stepped solar still. The inuence of depth and width of trays
on the performance of the stepped solar still were investigated.
Feed water temperature to the stepped still was varied using a vacuum tube solar collector. For further augmentation of the yield, a
wick on the vertical sides was added to the stepped still It is found
that maximum productivity of stepped still was achieved at a tray
depth of 5 mm and tray width of 120 mm, which is about 57.3%
higher than that of the conventional still.

Z.M. Omara et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 876881

Plane reectors used to enhance energy input to the basin.

Internal and external reectors can increase the distillate productivity of solar stills, and many reports about the effect of internal
and external reectors [816] on the distillate productivity of solar
stills have been presented. Tanaka [8] constructed a basin type
solar still with internal and external reectors, consisting of a basin
liner with internal reectors, a glass cover, and an external reector. Compared to the conventional basin solar still, more solar radiation is introduced into the still by the reectors. The daily
productivity could be increased by 70100% on winter days [8],
and a theoretical analysis has indicated that the increase in the
daily productivity for the entire year would average 48%, with little
enhancement on summer days [9]. Another theoretical analysis
was used to study the effect of a vertical at plate external reector
on the productivity of a tilted wick solar still and showed an
average increase about 9% over a year [10]. Tanaka [11] also indicated that the installation angle of the external reector should
be changed with the seasons to enhance the productivity all the
year around. Also Tanaka [12,13] analyzed theoretically a basin
type solar still and a tilted wick solar still with at plate external
bottom reector.
Abdallah et al. [14] improved the single slope solar still performance through increasing the production rate of distilled water.
Design modications were introduced to the conventional solar
still, involving the installation of reecting mirrors on all interior
sides, replacing the at basin by a step-wise basin, and by coupling
the conventional solar still with a sun tracking system. The inclusion of internal mirrors improved the system thermal performance
up to 30%. Kostic and Pavlovic [15] analyzed a solar collector with
top and bottom reectors and calculated the optimum yearly tilt
angle of both of the reectors for a xed collector tilt angle of
45 (43N Latitude). Nikolic and Lukic [16] carried out a mathematical model for determining the optimum reector position of the
double exposure at-plate solar collector in the condition where
the lower absorber surface is fully irradiated. Additionally, the
model was simulated to determine the optimal reector positions
for the optimum collector yearly position.
The aim of this work is to come up with a stepped solar still
design and operation that can enhance and make using internal
and external (top and bottom) reectors as heat sources optimize
its productivity with minimum costs to reach an economically
viable model.
2. Experimental setup
The experimental setup of the present study was located at the
Faculty of Engineering, Kafrelsheikh University, Egypt (Latitude
31.07N and longitude 30.57E). The experiments were carried
out during June to September 2012.
Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of the experimental setup. It
consists of a saline water tank, a conventional still (single basin
solar still) and a stepped solar still. The description of experimental setup is same Ref. [7] with some modication for stepped still.
Basin area of the conventional still is 1 m2 (0.5 m  2.0 m). Highside wall depth is 450 mm and the low-side wall height is
160 mm. The still is made of Galvanized steel sheets. The whole
basin surfaces are coated with black paint from inside to increase
the absorptivity. Also, the still is insulated from the bottom to the
side walls with sawdust of 4 cm thick to reduce the heat loss from
the still to ambient. The insulation layer is supported by a wooden frame. The basin is covered with a clear glass sheet 3 mm
thick inclined at nearly 30 horizontally, which is the latitude
of Kafrelsheikh, Egypt to maximize the amount of incident solar
radiation. The whole experimental setup is kept in the south
direction to receive maximum solar radiation throughout the
year.

877

The stepped still has the same dimension and construction of

conventional still; in addition the absorber plate is made of ve
steps (each of size 0.1 m  2 m) with tray depth 5 mm and width
120 mm, so that the absorber and water area are equal to
1.16 m2. The mirrors added on the vertical sides of the steps as
internal reectors of stepped still. The top external reector inclined backward. A photo of the stepped solar still with an internal
and external reectors is shown in Fig. 2. The angle of the glass
cover was set at 30 from horizontal. The width and length of the
external (top and bottom) reector are 60 cm  200 cm nearly
the same area of glass cover.
Ref. [18] indicated that the top reector is able to be inclined
forwards or backwards according to the seasons. In winter, the altitude angle of the sun decreases so a considerable amount of the
reected radiation from the vertical reector would escape to the
ground without hitting the still. Therefore, the top reector should
be inclined slightly forward. On the other hand, the altitude angle
of the sun increases in summer and the vertical reector cannot
effectively reect sunrays to the still. Therefore, the top reector
should be inclined slightly toward the back and the inclination
angle of the reector would be less than 25 throughout the year.
Ref. [13] indicated that, a at plate bottom reector extending from
the lower edge of the still and inclined upwards from horizontal
(through the year) would also be able to increase the solar radiation absorbed on the still as well as the distillate productivity.
Table 1 shows the optimum inclination of top and bottom
external reectors. So, in the present study (the experiments in
summer season) the angles of the top and bottom external reectors (hT and hB) were set at 15 and 50 which was predicted as an
optimum reector angle in the summer season when glass cover
angle is 30 [11,13,17].
Calibrated copper constantan type thermocouples (1 C) in
combination with a modular PLC was used to measure the base,
water, and outside glass temperatures of the studied stills. Also, a
thermocouple is used to measure the ambient temperature. The
solar radiation intensity is measured instantaneously by solarimeter with an accuracy of 1 W/m2. A ask of 2 l capacity and an
accuracy of 5 ml was used to measure the hourly yield. Vane type
digital anemometer was used to measure the wind velocity with an
accuracy of 0.1 m/s. The solar radiation, ambient temperature,
and the temperature of basin plate, saline water, outside glass cover and distilled water are measured every 1 h. The accumulated
productivity during the day is also measured.
The depth of the saline water in the solar stills is H = 5 mm,
where Kabeel et al. [7] Found that the maximum productivity of
stepped solar still is achieved at a depth H = 5 mm. The error analysis is same Ref. [7]. In addition, the depth of the saline water in the
solar still is kept approximately constant during the experiment by
manual make up every half hour with an amount of water equal to
the distillate.
3. Results and discussion
Depending upon the weather conditions the wind speed is varied
from 0.1 to 5.5 m/s at different days and solar intensity is varied from
20 to 1150 W/m2. The performance of stepped solar still is tested
under two cases; without reectors and with reectors (internal,
top external and bottom external reector). The performance of
the stepped still was evaluated and was compared with that of a
conventional solar still under the same meteorological conditions.
3.1. Performance of the stepped still
The variation of solar radiation, atmospheric temperature, basin
water temperature, and glass temperature of stills is shown in

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Z.M. Omara et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 876881

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup.

present solar desalination systems. Also from this table, it can be

observed that, the water productions are increased from zero value
in the morning and reached the maximum values in the afternoon.
Comparison of the daily productivity (24 h) for both conventional still and stepped still with and without mirrors is tabulated
in Table 3. It can be noticed from Table 3, 9-8-2012, that daily
productivity reaches approximately 3720 and 5840 ml/m2/day for
conventional still and stepped solar still without mirrors, respectively. In this case the increase in distillate production for stepped
solar still without mirrors is 57% higher than that for conventional
still, as reported in Ref. [7].
3.2. Performance of the stepped still with internal reectors
Fig. 2. A photo of the modied stepped solar still.

Table 1
The optimum reector inclination for different seasons.
Reector angle

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Refs.

Top, hT
Bottom, hB

7
30

15
50

8
30

15
20

[11]
[13]

Table 2. It is observed that the temperatures at all points increase

as the time increases till a maximum value in afternoon and start
to decrease after that, as expected. This is due to the increase of
solar radiation intensity in the morning and its decrease in the
afternoon. The table, 9/8/2012, shows the glass temperature and
basin water temperature of modied stepped solar still without
mirrors are higher than that of conventional still by about
03.5 C and 03 C, respectively. This may be referred to three
reasons: (1) a smaller air volume trapped inside the stepped still
chamber than in the conventional still and therefore heating up
the trapped air will be much faster, (2) the step-wise basin provides higher heat and mass transfer surface area (1.16 m2) than
the at basin (1 m2), thus consequently leads to increase the basin
water temperature of stepped solar still and (3) the amount of
water in the stepped still is higher than that of conventional still
at the same depth (5 mm), due to increase the base area of stepped
still at tray width W = 120 mm, Ref. [7].
Comparisons between the hourly variation of freshwater productivity per unit area for stepped and conventional solar stills
are Table 2. From the table it is found that the maximum fresh
water productivity in the afternoon has the highest values for the

From Table 2, 5/8/2012, it can be indicated that the glass temperature and basin water temperature of modied stepped solar
still with internal reectors (mirrors) are higher than that of
conventional still by about 04.5 C. Because of, adding mirrors
on the vertical sides of steps of the stepped still minimize the
amount of energy lost. In addition, the reectors reect a fraction
of the radiation onto the water surface, thus consequently increase
the water and glass temperatures of the stepped solar still. So, the
evaporation and condensation rates in stepped solar stills were
higher than that of conventional still.
From Table 3, 5-8-2012, it can be noticed that daily productivity
(24 h) reaches approximately 3630 and 6350 ml/m2/day for
conventional still and stepped solar still with internal mirrors,
respectively. In this case the increase in distillate production for
stepped solar still with internal mirrors is 75% higher than that
for conventional still.
Al-Hayek and Badran [19] indicated that adoption of mirrors on
the inside walls of the solar stills will enhance the production of
distilled water and improve the efciency through controlling
the radiation losses from the still basin.
3.3. Performance of the stepped still with internal and top external
reectors
Fig. 3 shows the variation of solar radiation, atmospheric temperature, basin water temperature and outside glass temperature
for conventional still and modied stepped solar still with internal and top external mirrors. The gure shows narrower temperature changes during the experimental hours for the solar stills,
which means that the maximum temperature was maintained

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Z.M. Omara et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 876881

Table 2
Hourly measured parameters of the tested solar stills.
Time
(h)

9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19

9/8/2012

5/8/2012

Meteorological
data

Conventional still

Stepped still

Meteorological
data

Conventional still

Stepped still with internal

mirrors

I (W/
m2)

Ta
(C)

Tg
(C)

Tw
(C)

P (ml/
h)

Tg
(C)

Tw
(C)

P (ml/
h)

I (W/
m2)

Ta
(C)

Tg
(C)

Tw
(C)

P (ml/
h)

Tg
(C)

Tw
(C)

P (ml/
h)

780
950
1030
1100
1080
970
720
490
260
160
40

28
31
33
34
35
35
34
33
32
30
28

34
38
43
44
45
44
40
37
35
34
32

40
56
68
73
74
72
65
58
55
45
41

0
180
370
620
655
540
450
320
220
130
90

34
41.5
45
46
48
46
43
40
38
36.5
32

42
58
71
75
76
74
67
60
56
47
42

0
390
600
930
980
870
700
620
380
240
110

740
955
1010
1060
1050
950
705
450
270
180
38

28
30
32
33
34
34
33.5
33
32
31
28

33
38
40
43
44
42
40.5
37
36
34
30

38
54
65
72
72.5
70
63
56
50
44.5
39

0
180
360
600
630
560
450
320
200
130
80

34
41
44
46
47
46.5
43
41
37
35
31.5

42
58
69.5
75
76
74
67.5
59
53.5
46
41.5

0
370
690
950
990
870
780
650
460
260
140

for several hours between 11 am up to 3 pm due to the increase

in the amount of energy absorbed by the solar still system. From
gure, it can be observed that the basin water temperature of
stepped still was about 38 C in the morning and increased to
the maximum value as 74 C at mid-noon. The solar still performance was improved at mid-noon, and this may be attributed
to the increase of solar radiation which leads to higher ambient
temperature and higher solar still temperature. Also, from gure
the glass temperature and basin water temperature of modied
stepped solar still with internal and top external mirrors are
higher than that of conventional still by about 06 C and 0
5 C, respectively. Where the external reector is used to enhanced energy input to the stepped still. The top external reector reect a fraction of the radiation onto the water surface of
stepped still, thus consequently increase the water and glass temperatures, Consequently, the evaporation and condensation rates
in stepped solar stills were increased.
Comparisons between the hourly variation of freshwater productivity per unit area for stepped solar still (with internal and
top external mirrors) and conventional solar stills are illustrated
in Fig. 4. From the gure it is found an increase in the water
productivity during early hours of the day until it reaches the
maximum water productivity around mid-noon at the highest solar radiation, then decreases as the sun sets. In addition, it can be
seen that the maximum productivity occurs at maximum temperature of saline water. Also, it can be observed from Fig. 4 that
the fresh water productivity for stepped still is greater than that

of conventional type at all time. The distillate production rate for

each still peaks about one hour later than that of the solar radiation because of the heat capacity of the still. In addition, Fig. 4
shows that the water productivity was around 0 early mornings,
reaching up to 1150 and 650 ml/m2 h as a maximum productivity
at 1 pm for stepped still with internal and top external mirrors
and conventional still, respectively.
Fig. 5 shows a comparison between the hourly accumulative
variations of fresh water productivity from 9 am to sunset for the
two tested stills. It is found that the amount of accumulated distillate for stepped solar still is higher than that of conventional still at
all time, where the hourly freshwater productivity is higher for
stepped solar still.
As shown in Table 3, the distillate reaches 6500 and 3400 ml/m2 day
for stepped with external top reector and conventional still, respectively, and the increase in daily productivity for stepped solar still is
91% higher than that for conventional still. In addition, the distillate
reaches 3550 and 7400 ml/m2 day for conventional still and stepped
solar still with internal and top external mirrors, respectively. In this
case the increase in distillate production for stepped solar still is
108% higher than that for conventional still.
3.4. Performance of the stepped still with internal and external (top
and bottom) reectors
Installing internal and external (top and bottom) reectors gave
better performance because these mirrors enhance energy input to

Table 3
Accumulated productivity for some experiments days.
Date

12-6-2012
17-7-2012
5-8-2012
9-8-2012
2-9-2012
4-9-2012
6-9-2012
8-9-2012
12-9-2012
13-9-2012
15-9-2012
16-9-2012
18-9-2012
24-9-2012

Daily Productivity, ml/m2 day

Daily
productivity
rise (%)

Conventional
still

Stepped
still

Stepped with mirrors

Internal

Top external

Bottom
external

Internal and
top external

Internal and
bottom external

Internal and
external (top and bottom)

2800
3450
3630
3720
3500
3550
3600
3500
3400
3350
3450
3350
3400
3100

4350

5840

6000
6350

6500
5900

6830
6600

7300
7400

7240
7150

8100
7840

55
74
75
57
108
108
125
124
113
113
98
98
91
90

Z.M. Omara et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 876881

Outside glass temperature

Conventional still
Stepped still with internal
and top external reflectors
1200

Basin water temperature

Conventional still
Stepped still with internal
and top external reflectors
100
4/9/2012

Ambient temperature
Solar radiation

90

1000

800
70
600

60
50

400

Solar radiation, W /m 2

Temperature, oC

80

9000
Conventional still
Stepped still with internal

8000

Accumulated distillate ,ml /m 2

880

and top external reflectors

7000
6000

4/9/2012
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000

40
200
30

0
8

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Time,h

20

0
8

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Fig. 5. The accumulative variation of fresh water for conventional solar still and
stepped solar still with internal and top external reectors.

Time, h
Fig. 3. Comparative analysis of conventional solar still and stepped solar still with
internal and top external reectors.

4. Cost evaluation

1200

The cost of the solar distillation unit is important, since design

of solar still cheaper but long lasting materials should be preferred.
Cost of the solar still depends on productivity and the productivity
also depends on solar radiation intensity, it changes due to the
location of the solar still. In this respect, the choosing of the location is an important factor on cost.

4/9/2012

1000

Productivity,ml/m 2 .h

(top and bottom) reectors is 125% higher than that of conventional still.

800

4.1. Cost estimation for conventional still

600

400

200

Conventional still
stepped still with internal

and top external reflectors

0
8

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19 20

Time,h
Fig. 4. The variation of fresh water productivity for conventional solar still and
stepped solar still with internal and top external reectors.

The total xed cost of conventional still is about F = 103$. To obtain the average value of the cost of distillate output, it is important
to assume that V is the variable cost and C is the total cost, where
C = F + V. Assume variable cost V equals 0.3 F per year, as reported
in [20], then C = 103 + 0.3  103  10 = 412$. Where the minimum
average daily productivity can be estimated from the analysis of
different experimental data and it is taken as 2.5 l/day. To determine the annual cost for 1 l assuming that the still operates
340 days in the year, where the sun rise along the year in Egypt.
The expected still life time is 10 years. The total productivity
during the still life time = 2.5  10  340 = 8500 l. Then the cost
of one liter from conventional still = 412/8500 = 0.049$.
4.2. Cost estimation for modied stepped solar still

the stepped still. The results indicated that, the glass temperature
and basin water temperature of modied stepped solar still with
internal and external (top and bottom) reectors are higher than
that of conventional still by about 010 C and 09 C, respectively.
Where top and bottom reectors reect a large amount of the radiation onto the stepped solar still. Thus increase the evaporation
and condensation rates.
It can be noticed from Table 3 that daily productivity reaches
approximately 3600 and 8100 ml/m2 day for conventional still
and stepped solar still internal and external (top and bottom)
mirrors, respectively. In this case the increase in distillate
production for stepped solar still with internal and external

The total xed cost of modied stepped solar still with internal
and external (top and bottom) mirrors is about F = 160$. Then
C = 160 + 0.3  160  10 = 640$. Assume the minimum average
daily productivity 6 l/day, also assumed still operates 340 days in
the year. The total productivity during the still life time = 6
 10  340 = 20,400 l. Then the cost of one liter from conventional
still = 640/15,300 = 0.031$.
5. Conclusions
We performed outdoor experiments of a stepped solar still with
internal and external (top and bottom) reectors. The results show

Z.M. Omara et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 876881

that the thermal performance of a modied stepped solar still can

be considerably improved through the new modication. A very
simple modication using internal and external (top and bottom)
reectors can increase the daily productivity of a stepped solar still
by about 125% over conventional still. In this case the estimated
cost of 1 l of distillate for stepped still with reectors and conventional solar stills is approximately 0.031$ and 0.049$, respectively.
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