Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

PERFORMANCE OF A SOLAR STILL WITH CLOTHES

MOVING WICK
Helmy E. Gad 1, Safya M. El-Gayar 2 and Hisham E. Gad3
1
Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering,
Mansoura University, El-Mansoura 35516, Egypt, E-mail: he_gad@yahoo.com
2
Senior researcher, Agric. Eng. Res. Inst., A. R. C, Giza, P.O. 256, Egypt
E-mail: safelgyar@yahoo.com
3
Computers and Systems Department, Faculty of Engineering,
Mansoura University, El-Mansoura 35516, Egypt, E-mail: hmwork2004@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT
Solar distillation presents a promising alternative for saline water resources that can
partially support arid remote areas needs form fresh water with free energy, simple
technology and a clean environment. The problem of low daily productivity of the
solar stills triggered scientists to investigate various means of improving its
productivity and thermal efficiency in order to reduce the distilled water production
cost. This paper investigates experimentally the performance of a simple solar still
with clothes moving wick driven with a DC motor via a control circuit. The clothes
wick is immersed in water when the motor is ON, and the wet clothes is subjected to
solar radiation when the motor is in OFF period. The setup is suitably instrumented to
measure solar radiation data on tilted surface, amount of distilled water, ambient air
temperature, the inner glass and bottom box inside temperatures. Results show that an
ON period 30 seconds is suitable and an OFF period of 25 minutes yields maximum
thermal efficiency. This research work proves that it is possible to operate such solar
still with the computer to reduce the cost of production of distilled water. Results are
given in graphical form.

KEYWORDS: Performance - Solar still - moving - clothes wick

INTRODUCTION

Clean water is a basic human necessity, and without water the life will be impossible.
Supplying fresh and healthy water is still one of the major problems in different parts
of the world especially in arid remote areas [1]. Sources of fresh water are the great
oceans and seas that can be desalinated by various methods including solar energy.
Most existing desalination plants use fossil fuel as a source of energy. Although a few
techniques such as multi-effect evaporation, multi-stage flash distillation, thin film
distillation, vapor compression, reverse osmosis and electro dialysis are energy
intensive and operating cost is high. These technologies are expensive, however, for
the production of small amount of fresh water. The direct use of solar energy
represents a promising option for eliminating the major operating cost.
Solar distillation can provide the most attractive solution for those areas where plenty
of solar energy is available and water demand is not too much. Solar still can be used
 Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

for producing drinking water with a low cost and maintenance, but the problem of
this device is the low productivity [2]. The development of solar distillation has
demonstrated its suitability for saline water desalination when the weather conditions
are favorable and the demand is not too large, i.e., less than 200 m3/d [3].
The basin-type solar stills are the most popular solar distillation systems from a
technical standpoint. However, it is known that, for the traditional solar stills, there
are three serious shortcomings; the latent heat of condensation is not reused in the
evaporation–condensation processes; small evaporation surface and limited
condensation process. The basin-type solar still is tested by many researchers [4-8]
concluding that the maximum productivity is about 2-3 L/m2 day.
Ohshiro et al. [9] indicated that after theoretically and experimentally analyzing a
wick/poly (tetrafluoroethylene) net/wick layered unit, they constructed a ten unit
theoretical model of a multi-wick solar still. Compared to a conventional 10 mm gap
unit, their internal temperature drops are found to be drastically lower, at the cost of
only small decreases in productivity. The net-unit stills allow a much more compact
design and have greater productivity than a still consisting of ten conventional 10 mm
gap units. While, Fath [10] reported that the following design and operational
parameters should be considered in future developments in solar stills: higher basin
temperature (lower water level, use of wick, adding black dyes, additional external
heating-collector, concentrator, waste heat recovery), lower cover temperature (cover
cooling, multi-effect, overnight with basin energy storage, additional condenser),
large evaporation and condensation surface areas re-utilization of the latent heat of
condensation (multi effect) minimize heat losses (good side and bottom insulation),
utilization of the shaded area (additional condenser, combined stills, etc.). Continuous
research will ultimately lead to a water production cost that can compete with other
technologies, in addition to the basic advantages of solar distillation. Moreover,
Badran [11] used that the inverted trickle solar still, is improved mainly by adding a
heat exchanger inside the condenser. The exchanger recovers part of the heat released
in the condensation process and utilizes it in heating the saline water feed. This
improvement, in addition to insulating the sides of the still and increasing the flow
rate of the saline water feed, resulted in increasing the productivity from about 2.5 l/d
to 2.8 l/d during the month of May. This improvement, which amounts to about 12%,
is related mainly to the condensate production. Theoretical analysis and experimental
investigation of heat and mass transfer mechanisms inside the capillary film solar
distiller have been developed by Bouchekima et al [12]. The experimental results
obtained show the significant superiority of this type of distiller over the conventional
basin type solar still. In addition Naim and Abd El Kwui [13] showed that charcoal
granules can be used as absorber medium successfully instead of wick-type, black
butyl rubber, or asphaltic absorbers. A 15% improvement in productivity over wick-
type stills has been attained. The still is non-conventional, cheap, simple, easy to
construct and operate, and is of low thermal capacity. They also showed that coarse
charcoal granules give acceptable results at high flow rates followed by intermediate
then fine granules. Additionally, Nafey et al. [14] concluded that solar still with
floating aluminum perforated black plate. They mentioned that, using the floating
aluminum perforated black plate in the productivity by 15% for a water depth of 3 cm
and 40% for a water depth of 6 cm. While, Abu-Hijleh and Rababah [15] reported
 Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

that, the use of sponge cubes in the basin water resulted in a significant improvement
in still production, up to 273%.Where, the sponge cubes increase the surface area
over which water evaporation occurs. The optimal combination was: sponge cubes
with 6 cm sides, 20% sponge to basin water volume ratio and 7 cm basin water depth.
They found that, black colored material tends to be better than materials with other
colors in absorbing the incident radiation.
An experimental study for an inverted trickle solar still was performed by Badran et
al. [16]. The still was basically composed of an inclined absorber plate painted black
on the top. Saline water flowed at the backside of the plate and was kept attached to
the plate. The water flow rate was kept low so that its temperature was raised to
produce vapor. Condensation took place in another compartment where a heat
exchanger was placed to provide heat recovery. They concluded that the productivity
of the inverted trickle solar still is moderately improved by using brackish water. The
productivity increased from 2.5 to 2.8 L/d when the salinity of the water was reduced
from (35000 ppm) to brackish water (6000 ppm).
Badran and Al-Tahaineh [17] integrated a conventional flat plate collector with a
solar still to augment the production rate. They found that, the mass of distilled water
production was increased by 52%, when the still was coupled with flat plate collector.
Moreover, Tanaka and Nakatake [18] investigated the effect of vertical flat plate
external reflector on the productivity of the tilted wick solar still. They proposed a
geometrical method to calculate the solar radiation reflected by the external reflector
and absorbed on the evaporating wick, and also performed numerical analysis of heat
and mass transfer in the still to predict the distillate productivity on four days (spring
and autumn equinox and summer and winter solstice days) at 30 oN latitude. They
found that the external reflector can increase the distillate productivity in all but the
summer seasons, and the increase in the daily amount of distillate averaged over the
four days is predicted to be about 9%.While, Sadineni et al. [19] indicated that there
is a significant reduction in the performance with a double-pane glass compared with
a single-pane glass. Due to the reduced temperature difference between the
evaporating water and condensing glass in a still with double-pane glass used both as
transparent cover and condensing surface, the productivity reduced significantly.
They also observed that the proposed design is superior in productivity (20%
improvement) compared with a conventional basin-type solar still. In addition,
Abdallah et al. [20] investigated the performance of a basin type solar still system
with three different design modifications. Installing internal reflecting mirrors gave
an average of 30% increase in the amount of distilled water produced when compared
with a classical fixed solar still system. Modifying the still design from a flat basin
into step-wise basin gave a higher production rate with an average increase of 180%.
Also, coupling the modified still design with a sun tracking system gave further
improvement, reaching up to a 380% increase in the production rate of distilled
water. Whereas, Abdallah et al. [21] reported that the addition of the absorbing
materials improves the thermal performance of the solar still. Both coated and
uncoated metallic wiry sponges have increased the water collection gain by 28% and
43% respectively. One of main drawbacks noticed on the metallic wiry sponges that
corrosion started to appear in certain parts of the sponge. Whereas, black rocks gave
around 60% gain with no corrosion problems. So, they concluded that the black rocks
 Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

absorb, store and release the incident solar energy better than the coated and uncoated
metallic wiry sponges and can enhance the productivity by nearly 20%.
Kaushal and Varun [22] indicated that, solar radiation is used for the energy available
by the sun, which means this system works on solar energy. There are many methods
for desalination of brackish water in to potable water. Therefore, different types of
solar stills are discussed for the production of pure water. A proper combination of
cooling film parameters enhanced the still efficiency by 20%. In multi-effect
diffusion model the productivity decreases about 15% with an increase in diffusion
gaps between partitions from 5 mm to 10 mm.
In the present work, a new technique is used and experimentally tested. A black
clothes moving wick which is intermittently moves on two rollers with a DC motor
via a control circuit. The control circuit works by a computer program by fixing the
ON period at a suitable value, and changing the OFF periods to different values to
produce the maximum thermal efficiency of the system.

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND PROCEDURE

Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the setup which consists of the solar still with
the control circuit. The stills basin is a wooden box measured 80 cm long, 60 cm
width with a depth of 15 cm from inside. The box is painted with oil white several
times from inside to prevent leakage. The still is 3 mm thick glass covered and fixed
on an iron frame with an inclination angle of 30o facing south. The distillate is
collected at the lower edge of the glass cover via a thin iron trough to a calibrated Jar.
The compensate water is added from the still top as shown in Fig. 1.
The black clothe is fixed on a two copper rollers as a belt. The lower roller is free,
while the upper roller is fixed with a high torque DC motor. The lower roller and the
cloth are immersed in the water. The setup is instrumented to measure the inner glass
surface and inside bottom temperatures. The ambient air temperature and solar
radiation on tilted surface are also measured. The solar radiation data and distilled
water were collected nearly each 30 minutes.
The experimental work is carried out on the roof of the Thermal engineering
laboratory, Mechanical power department, Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura
University, latitude 31.04083o N and longitude 31.4861o E. The experiments were
performed during the different days from months of October and November 2010 on
sunny days.
Figure 2 shows a block diagram of the control circuit. This circuit is used also for
monitoring and sending the measured temperatures from the system to the computer.
The main component of the circuit is the PIC18F2455, which it is a USB (universal
serial bus) microcontroller form Microchip Company. This microcontroller has been
chosen, since it provides the capability of connecting it to the computer via a USB
(version 2.0) interface. The USB 2.0 is a high speed serial interface, which it provides
a communication speed up to 12 Mb/s, making it the most suitable interface for
transferring high speed data between the computer and the microcontroller [23].
 Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

Fig. 1 The experimental setup.

Also, this microcontroller has a large numbers of A/D converter channels (up to 10
channels) to convert the analog signals from the temperature sensors into a digital
form. However, only three channels have been used for the temperature sensors.
Additionally, the internal memory size of this microcontroller (24 KB program
memory and 2 KB data memory) and its processing power are high making it the
most suitable device for controlling and monitoring the system in real time [24].
Moreover, it is readily available in the market with a low cost compared to the digital
signal processors and the PLC controller.
The temperature sensors are LM35DZ from National Semiconductor, which it is a
high precision integrated circuit temperature sensor. The output voltage of this sensor
is linearly proportional to the Celsius temperature. The LM35DZ does not require any
external calibration. Also, it provide a typical accuracies of ± 0.25 °C at room
temperature and ± 0.75 °C over a full −55 to +150°C temperature range. Moreover, it
has a very low self-heating, which it is less than 0.1°C in stagnant air [25]. However,
a noise suppression circuit must be added to the output of each sensor to reduce the
effect of the electromagnetic noise from the DC motor as shown in Fig. 2.
The DC motor interface circuit, which consists of a high power transistor, is used as
an electronic switch to provide the necessary current and voltage to drive the DC
 Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

motor. The transistor is controlled by a small control signal coming from the
microcontroller as shown in the same figure. The computer program is designed and
written by using Csharp.net software version 9.0. This program is responsible for
storing the measured temperatures in an Excel file (with a specific sampling rate) and
controlling the DC motor ON-OFF timing rates.

Fig. 2 A block diagram of The control circuit.

The three temperature sensors are fixed in the experimental setup, one is fixed to
measure the inner glass cover temperature, the second is fixed to measure the inner
still bottom temperature and the third is fixed under the setup to measure the ambient
air temperature. The sampling rate of recorded data is adjusted via the computer
program by 5 minutes. The DC motor is also adjusted by the same program to be ON
for 30 seconds, and OFF for a specific period of time. Results are recorded in an
Excel file. The OFF time is taken as 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 minutes. The ON
time (30 seconds) is sufficient to keep the cloth wet. The OFF times are tested
experimentally.
Figure 3 shows a photograph of the setup where the computer, the control circuit and
the solar meter are fixed in the shadow under the solar still. The motor is fixed to the
upper roll via a flexible coupling. The system is totally driven via the computer
program which decides the ON and OFF periods of operation. The sampling rate of
recording readings is also decided by 5 minutes. The computer program is subjected
to some problems in the beginning of experiment because of the higher ambient
temperature. For a stable operation, the microcontroller must work in a moderate
ambient temperature.
 Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

Fig. 3 A photograph of the experimental setup.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Figures from 4 to 11 show some collected data of the experiments which are carried
out in different days from October and November, 2010. The global solar radiation
intensity on the tilted surface (w/m2) of the still and the amount of distilled water (ml)
are shown in the left part of the figures. The inner surface glass temperature (°C), box
bottom inside temperature (°C) and ambient air temperature (°C) are shown in right
part of the figures. The experiments are performed at different motor OFF periods; 5,
10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 minutes. In general, the solar radiation intensity on tilted
surface increases to noon hours and then decreases again. The maximum solar
radiation changes from day to another from 710 w/m2 to 835w/m2. The distilled water
has the same trend with a little time delay. The cloud conditions and ambient
temperature change also from day to another as usual during autumn season.

Fig. 4 Solar radiation, amount of distilled water and temperatures vs. time (OFF period 5 min).
 Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

Fig. 5 Solar radiation, amount of distilled water and temperatures vs. time (OFF period 10 min).

Fig. 6 Solar radiation, amount of distilled water and temperatures vs. time (OFF period 15 min).

Fig. 7 Solar radiation, amount of distilled water and temperatures vs. time (OFF period 20 min).

Fig. 8 Solar radiation, amount of distilled water and temperatures vs. time (OFF period 30 min).
 Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

Fig. 9 Solar radiation, amount of distilled water and temperatures vs. time (OFF period 40 min).

Fig. 10 Solar radiation, amount of distilled water and temperatures vs. time (OFF period 50 min).

Fig. 11 Solar radiation, amount of distilled water and temperatures vs. time (OFF period 60 min).

Therefore, to compare between results, it is better to use the thermal efficiency since
the solar radiation differ from day to another. The thermal efficiency of the still
during a certain period,  is defined by,
mw L
  t
A  G dt
0
Where, mw is the total mass of distilled water collected during this period, Kg
L Latent heat of evaporation at the glass temperature, KJ/kg,
G Solar radiation on tilted surface, w/m2
A Area of the clothes wick, m2
 Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

 Operation period, seconds

and t is the time, seconds.
A MATrix LABoratory (MATLAB) computer program is developed to calculate the
above equation with a time step 0.01 seconds. The best fit equation is obtained for the
solar radiation intensity, G and is used to integrate it. The amount of distilled water
(ml) is simply the total amount of water collected during the experiment (Kg). The
subjected area of the clothes, A is taken as an average 0.25 m2 since it contracts
during the experimental run. The operation period changes from 7 to 8 hours as
shown in the above figures.
Results show the solar still thermal efficiency as a function of OFF period (min) as
given on Fig. 12. The continuous line represents the best fit for the experimental
results (stars). It is clear that the thermal efficiency increases to a maximum of 0.43 at
25 OFF period according to the best fit curve. This research work proves that it is
possible to operate such solar still with the computer to reduce the cost of production
of distilled water.

Fig. 12 The solar still thermal efficiency vs. the OFF period, min

CONCLUSION

The problem of low daily productivity of the solar stills has to be investigated by
various means of improving its productivity and thermal efficiency in order to reduce
the distilled water production cost. This paper investigates experimentally the
performance of a simple solar still with clothes moving wick driven with a small DC
motor via a control circuit. The clothes wick is immersed in water when the motor is
ON, and the wet clothes is subjected to solar radiation when the motor is in OFF
 Fifteenth International Water Technology Conference, IWTC ٢٠١١, Alexandria, Egypt

period. The setup is suitably instrumented to measure solar radiation data on tilted
surface, amount of distilled water, ambient air temperature, the inner glass and
bottom box inside temperatures. The solar radiation data and distilled water were
collected nearly each 30 minutes. Results show that an ON period 30 seconds is
suitable and an OFF period of 25 minutes yields maximum thermal efficiency.
Results show also that, the solar radiation intensity on tilted surface increases to noon
hours and then decrease again. The maximum solar radiation changes from day to
another from 700 w/m2 to 800 w/m2. The distilled water has the same trend with a
little time delay. This research work proves that it is possible to operate such solar
still with the computer to reduce the cost of production of distilled water. Results are
given in graphical form.

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