Desalination 286 (2012) 342–348

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Desalination
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/desal

An experimental study on a hemispherical solar still

T. Arunkumar a, R. Jayaprakash a,⁎, D. Denkenberger b, Amimul Ahsan c, M.S. Okundamiya d, Sanjay kumar e,
Hiroshi Tanaka f, H.Ş. Aybar g
a
Solar Energy Laboratory, Department of Physics, Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore-641020, Tamilnadu, India
b
Denkenberger Inventing and Consulting, Durango, CO 81301, 2345 Forest Ave, USA
c
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, (Green Engineering and Sustainable Technology Lab, Institute of Advanced Technology), University Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM
Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
d
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Ambrose Alli University, P. M. B. 14, Ekpoma 310006, Nigeria
e
Centre for Renewable Energy and Environmental Research, P.O. Box-5, Muzaffarpur-842001, Bihar, India
f
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kurume National College of Technology, Komorino, Kurume, Fukuoka, 830–8555, Japan
g
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Eastern Mediterranean University, G. Magosa, North Cyprus, Mersin 10 Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This work reports a new design of solar still with a hemispherical top cover for water desalination with and
Received 31 July 2011 without flowing water over the cover. The daily distillate output of the system is increased by lowering the
Received in revised form 2 November 2011 temperature of the cover by water flowing over it. The fresh water production performance of this new
Accepted 18 November 2011
still was observed in Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore (11°
Available online 21 December 2011
North, 77° East), India. The efficiency was 34%, and increased to 42% with the top cover cooling effect. Diurnal
Keywords:
variations of a few important parameters were observed during field experiments such as water temperature,
Desalination cover temperature, air temperature, ambient temperature and distillate output. Solar radiation incident on a
Hemispherical solar still solar still is also discussed here.
Efficiency © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Water demand for various purposes, domestic, industrial and agricul-
ture, has increased considerably. To meet this growing demand, ground
water has been intensively exploited. Fresh water is an immediate
need for human life for drinking water. 97% of Earth's water is saline
and 2% is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. Hence, only 1% of the
world's water is usable for drinking and domestic utilities [1]. This pre-
sents a great challenge due to the increasing water demand and salinity
of ground water. Desalination of brackish water is a method of providing
potable water for human beings.
Ismail [2] studied the design and performance of a transportable
hemispherical solar still. The result showed that the daily distilled water
output from the still ranged from 2.8 L/(m2 ∗day) to 5.7 L/(m2 ∗day). Nor-
mally in solar stills, the heat of condensation on the top cover is trans-
ferred to the atmosphere by convection and radiation. However, the
radiation and convection losses from the still are relatively small, which
leads to a high cover temperature, which in turn leads to a high basin
water temperature. The effect of water flow using a simple solar still
was investigated by Lawrence et al. [3]. They conducted numerical simu-
lations that were validated using their own experiments for a typical sum-
mer day. Their results show that the efficiency of the still increases as the
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 91 422 6562371.
E-mail addresses: jprakash_jpr@rediffmail.com (R. Jayaprakash),
st_mico@yahoo.com (M.S. Okundamiya), prof.ssinha@gmail.com (S. kumar).
water film flow rate increases and is more significant at greater basin
water depth. Abu-Hijleh [4] and Abu-Hijleh and Mousa [5] theoretically
investigated solar still performance with flowing water as a film over
the cover of a single-glass solar still. It was reported that with the proper
use of film cooling parameters, the still efficiency could be improved by as
much as 20% when accounting for evaporation from the film and 6% with-
out considering evaporation. Several investigations [6–23] have demon-
strated the significance of water flowing over the condensing still cover
in the field of desalination.
This paper covers an experimental study on a hemispherical solar
still with and without the cooling effect of flowing water on the cover
for the climatic conditions of Coimbatore, India.
2. Materials and methods
The water storage basin of the still was constructed with a diame-
ter of 0.95 m and a height of 0.10 m using mild steel (Fig. 1). The
water storage basin was painted black to increase the absorptivity.
The water drainage segment of 0.02 m breadth and 0.02 m height
was fixed at the inner perimeter of the basin wall. The still was filled
with saline water to a height of 0.05 m. The top hemispherical cover
of diameter 0.945 m and height 0.20 m was constructed of transparent
acrylic sheet of 3 mm thickness with solar transmittance of 88%. The
outer box for the still was constructed of wood of thickness 4 mm
with the dimension 1.10 m × 1.10 m × 0.25 m (Fig. 2). The bottom of
the basin was filled with sawdust up to a height of 0.15 m. The sides

0011-9164/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.desal.2011.11.047
 T. Arunkumar et al. / Desalination 286 (2012) 342–348 343

Fig. 1. Cross sectional view of a hemi spherical solar still.

of the basin are insulated with the glass wool. Glass wool has a higher orientation (azimuth) and ω is the hour angle. All the angles are in
insulation value per thickness, but sawdust was used underneath be- degrees. Applying the Law of Cosines to the spherical surface of
cause it had to support the weight of the still. These insulation layers re- Fig. 4, Eq. (1) reduces to
duce the conduction heat loss through the base and sides of the solar
still and variation in the insulation value can have a 10% effect on overall cos θ ¼ cos θz cos β þ sin θz sin β cosðγ s −γÞ; ð2Þ
productivity [24]. The saw dust insulation is less expensive, but may
have issues of durability if it gets wet. The effect of the cooling on the where γs is the solar azimuth angle and θz is the zenith angle. The
top cover is analyzed by designing separate devices for injecting and solar azimuth angle γs is obtained from the expression [26]:
collecting the flowing water at the top surface of the cover (Fig. 3).
ð cos θz sin φ− sin δÞ
The parameters used in the experiment are given in Table 1. The still cos γs ¼ : ð3Þ
sin θz cos φ
temperature was recorded using K-type thermocouples and digital
temperature indicators. The solar radiation intensity was recorded by
a precision pyranometer. The daily production was obtained as a sum- For horizontal surfaces, the angle of incidence is the zenith angle
mation of day and night production. However, the solar radiation was of the sun (that is, at 0° or 90° when the sun is above the horizon),
only measured over an eight hour period, so this underestimates the hence, β = 0 and Eq. (1) becomes
solar radiation and therefore overestimates the efficiency.
cos θZ ¼ sin δ sin φ þ cos δ cos φ cos ω ð4Þ

3. Solar radiation incident on a solar still When θZ = 90°, ω = ωs and Eq. (4) becomes

For a solar surface with any orientation at time t, the cosine of the ωS ¼ cos
−1
ð− tan δ tan φÞ ð5Þ
angle of incidence of beam radiation is [25]:
where ωs is the sunset hour angle in degrees. According to Cooper
cos θ ¼ sin δ sin φ cos β− sin δ cos φ sin β cos γ [27] at the intervening periods of the year, solar declination angle
þ cos δ cos φ cos β cos ω þ cos δ sin φ sin β cos γ cos ω ð1Þ can be approximated by a sinusoidal variation as:
þ cos δ sin β sin γ sin ω

∘ ∘ 284 þ n
δ ¼ 23:45 sin 360 ; ð6Þ
365
where θ is the angle of incidence, δ is the solar declination, φ is the
latitude, β is the surface inclination (tilt) angle, γ is the surface where n is the day number of the year, starting with 1 for January 1st
i.e. 1 ≤ n ≤ 365. The geometric ratio (factor) is ratio of beam radiation

Fig. 2. Experimental solar still. Fig. 3. Solar still showing cooling water system.
344 T. Arunkumar et al. / Desalination 286 (2012) 342–348

Table 1 where I0 is the hourly extraterrestrial radiation on a horizontal sur-

Experiment parameters. face defined as [29]:
Parameters Symbol Value

360  30  
I0 ¼ 1367 1 þ 0:033 cos sin 23:18 sin 11˚ þ cos 23:18 ˚ cos 11˚ cos 45˚  ð12Þ
Transmissivity of cover τc 88% 365
Emissivity of cover εc 0.98
Wind velocity V 1 m/s 2
Density of water ρ 989 kg/m3
I0 ¼ 982:04 W=m
Latent heat of vaporization hfg 2,372,000 (J/kg)
Declination angle δ 23.18° The horizon brightening ƒ is given as:
Latitude φ 11°
rffiffiffiffi
Ib
f ¼ ð13Þ
I

The global solar irradiance on the tilted surface [29]:

on the tilted surface to beam radiation on the horizontal surface [25]




given as: 1 þ cos β β
IT ¼ Rb ðIb þ Id Ai Þ þ Id ð1−Ai Þ 1 þ f sin3

 2 2 ð14Þ
cos θ 1− cos β
Rb ¼ ð7Þ þId ρg
cos θZ 2

where β is the inclination (tilt) of the surface (°) and ρg is the ground
The hourly diffuse and global solar radiation is respectively computed reflectance or albedo (%). The calculated values are shown in Table 2.
[28] as: The evaporation heat flux (qew) is expressed as [30]

P qew ¼ hew ðTw −Tc Þ ð15Þ

πH d cos ω− cos ωs
Id ¼  cos ωs  and ð8Þ
24 sin ωs − πωs180
where hew is the heat transfer coefficient given as:
P −3
πH cos ω− cos ωs hew ¼ 16:273  10 hcw ð16Þ
I¼  cos ωs  : ð9Þ
24 sin ωs − πωs180
The convective heat transfer coefficient is
And hourly beam radiation is: 
ðP −Pc ÞðTw þ 273Þ
hcw ¼ 0:884 ðTw −Tc Þ þ w ; ð17Þ
Ib ¼ I−Id ð10Þ 268:9  103 −Pw

where I, Ib, and Id respectively are the hourly global, beam and diffuse where Pw and Pc are the vapor pressure of water and the top cover re-
solar radiation on a horizontal surface. The anisotropy index, Ai is spectively as defined by Eqs. (18) and (19).
given as: 
5144:0
Ib Pw ¼ exp 25:317− ð18Þ
Ai ¼ ð11Þ Tw þ 273:15
I0

5144:0
Pc ¼ exp 25:317− ð19Þ
Tc þ 273:15

The instantaneous efficiency of the still is calculated using the for-

mula

M  hfg
η¼ ; ð20Þ
A  I  Δt

where M is the mass of the distillate output during the time interval,
hfg is the heat of vaporization, A is the collector area, I is the average
solar radiation over the time interval, and Δt is the time interval (in
this study, Δt = 1 h).

4. Results and analysis

Fig. 5 shows the average solar radiation with respect to average

basin water and cover temperature without cooling the top cover. The
average basin water and cover temperatures were 62 °C and 41 °C, re-
spectively. The average solar intensity measured during the study was
about 732 W/m2. Fig. 6 depicts the basin water and cover temperature

Table 2
Derived parameters.

Serial no β Cosθ θ Cosθz θz Cosγs γs Rb Ai f

1 0 0.99985 1.0 0.9775 12.2 −1 − 180 1.02 0.0016 0.48

Fig. 4. Earth–Sun geometry.
 T. Arunkumar et al. / Desalination 286 (2012) 342–348
Fig. 5. Variation of daily average water temperature (Tw) and cover temperature (Tc) of
the hemispherical solar still with respect to the daily average solar radiation (without
top cover cooling).
with respect to average solar radiation with cover cooling. The average
basin water and cover temperatures were 59 °C and 40 °C, respectively.
The average solar radiation recorded during the study was about
732 W/m 2. Results for the output of the still are shown in Figs. 7–8.
The rate of yield 3660 ml/m2/day for without cooling the top cover
and 4200 ml/m 2/day for with cooling the top cover. Fig. 9 shows the
still's efficiency as a function of time for typical day in April 2010.
4.1. Water analytical results
Water quality analysis was performed at the Tamilnadu Agricultural
University's, Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry Department in
Coimbatore, India. The results thus obtained are presented in Table 3.
Two different water samples were tested. Two parameters, pH and elec-
trical conductivity (dSm − 1) were measured before and after these sam-
ples were desalinated. Before desalination, the level of electrical
conductivity in the water was around 1dS m − 1 which is ~2% of ocean
water, but not drinkable. However, after desalination it decreased to
Fig. 6. Variation of daily average water temperature (Tw) and cover temperature (Tc) of
the hemispherical solar still with respect to the daily average solar radiation (with top
cover cooling).
345
Fig. 7. Variation of the daily yield of the hemispherical solar still with respect to the
daily average solar radiation (without top cover cooling).
0.10 dSm− 1, which is drinkable. The typical pH varies from one water
sample to another as well as on the nature of the construction materials
used in the water distribution system. It is usually in the range of 6.5 to
8 so the distilled water is also acceptable pH.
4.2. Cost analysis
The cost estimation for various components used in the fabrication of
hemispherical solar still is given in Table 4. The total cost of the fabricated
hemispherical acrylic solar still including labor charge was approximately
$165 for 0.71 m2 or $233/m2. With an output of 4.2 kg/m2/day, a life of
15 years, and an interest rate of 6%, this is approximately $0.017/kg water.
5. Discussion
The solar radiation passes through the hemispherical acrylic top
cover, and solar energy is absorbed by the blackened absorber basin.
The thermal performance is analyzed under clear sky days. The energy
absorbed by the absorber basin is mostly transferred to the water
through heating. The evaporated water is condensed on the inner surface
Fig. 8. Variation of the daily yield of the hemispherical solar still with respect to the
daily average solar radiation (with top cover cooling).
346 T. Arunkumar et al. / Desalination 286 (2012) 342–348

Table 4
Cost estimation for the components of the fabricated hemispherical solar still.

Component Cost($)

Acrylic sheet 48
Steel basin 45
Outer box 34
Pipe and fittings 23
Black paint and primers 11
Saw dust (insulation) 4.50
Total cost 165
Cost per m2 233

and the instantaneous heat of vaporization. The effect of water flow

over the condensing cover on the evaporative heat transfer rate is
shown in Fig. 10. The evaporative heat transfer has a maximum value
of 854 W/m2 for top cover cooling and 645 W/m2 for the conventional
still.

Fig. 9. Variation of stills’ efficiencies with time on days with the same solar radiation. 6. Conclusion

A hemispherical solar still has been fabricated and tested with and
of the top cover by releasing its latent heat. The condensed water, under without top cover cooling. The production rate depends on water, top
gravity, trickles down the top cover and is finally collected through a cover and atmospheric temperatures. The driving force of the solar dis-
drainage provided at the lower periphery. The temperature of the top tillation technique is the difference between the temperature of water
cover is an important parameter for the condensation. Wind affects the in the still basin and temperature of the cover (Tw − Tc). The efficiency
temperature of the top cover, but it is not controllable. Here, the idea is was increased from 34% to 42% for a fixed flow rate of 10 ml/min of
cooling the top cover in a controlled way with water on the outer surface water fed. The output of the hemispherical solar still with the same
of the top cover at a constant flow rate. The driving force of the solar dis- amount of solar radiation was improved by a factor of 1.25 due to effect
tillation technique is the difference between temperature of water in the of cooling water.
still basin and the temperature of the cover (Tw − Tc). The existence of
such temperature difference ensures the continuation of the distillation Appendix
process. Clearly, the hemispherical solar still with top cover water cooling
is superior to the solar still without cooling. This increase of output is At 0900 h, ω = 45°, 30th June is the 181th day of the year 2011.
shown in Figs. 7–8. The productivity of the hemispherical solar still is The declination of the sun using Eq. (6) becomes
moderately improved by cooling the top cover. δ = 23.18°
The variation of distilled yield is in the range of 3580 to 3680 ml/m2/ The zenith angle can be calculated from Eq. (4) as
day without cooling and 4180 to 4200 ml/m2/day with cooling. The daily






average water productivity is increased from 3660 to 4200 ml/m2/day B B B B B
cos θz ¼ sin 11 sin 23:18 þ cos 11 cos 23:18 cos 45
for a fixed flow rate of 10 ml/min of water fed. Consequently, the water
productivity increases to about 15% due to the effect of cooling the top
cos θz ¼ 0:70711
cover. Normally temperature difference between the top cover and am-
bient temperature plays a major part for condensing the water droplets
at the top cover of the still. The surface area of the hemispherical solar θz ¼ 44:9B
still is greater than a single slope solar still. Therefore, the hemispherical
top cover is coupled to the air better, lowering its temperature and in- From Eq. (3)
creasing condensation. The yield rate is much improved for this type of

still when compared to single slope conventional solar still [31]. The cos44:9B sin11B− sin23:18B
cos γs ¼ B B
basin walls cast shadows on the water surface during in the morning sin45 cos11
time as well as in the evening time. This drawback is decreased by reduc-
ing the height of the basin walls From Eq. (7)
Fig. 9 depicts the diurnal variation of efficiency with respect to time.
The overall daily efficiency is calculated with the total solar radiation
0:99985
and total water output. The conventional still achieved 34% efficiency Rb ¼
0:97748
in an average, and the cooling water system improved it to 42%. This im-
plies that the efficiency of the hemispherical solar still was improved by
a factor of 1.25 due to effect of cooling water. The evaporative heat
transfer is calculated by taking the product of the distilled water yield Rb ¼ 1:022885

Table 3
Tested water quality results.

Sample no. TDS (mg/l) pH Conductivity(dSm− 1)

Before desalination After desalination Before desalination After desalination Before desalination After desalination

Samples A–B 320 40 7.60 7.32 1 0.10

 T. Arunkumar et al. / Desalination 286 (2012) 342–348 347

From Eq. (13)

rffiffiffiffi
Ib
f ¼
I
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
16:31
f ¼
69:25

f ¼ 0:4853

From Eq. (17)

The evaporative heat transfer, q, (W/m 2) is calculated as q = Yield
(kg/m 2/s) × instantaneous heat of vaporization (J/kg).

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g: Glazing
i, j: Dependent variables, index
Glossary r: Radiative
s: Surface area
A: Area (m2), anisotropy sky: Sky
f: Horizon brightening w: Water
hcw: Convection heat transfer (W/m2)
hew: Evaporative heat transfer coefficient from water surface to top cover (W/m2)
Greek letters
hfg: Latent heat of vaporization (J/kg)
I: Solar intensity (W/m2)
α: Absorbtivity
M: Mass of the water in the basin (kg)
β: Slope
m: Air mass
γ: Surface azimuth angle
n: Day of the year
δ: Declination angle
P: Pressure (N/m2)
Δ: Interval
qb–s: Conductive heat flux from basin to soil
ε: Emissivity
qc,b–w: Convective heat flux from basin to basin water
θ: Angle
qc,g–a: Convective heat flux from glazing to ambient
η: Efficiency
qc,w–g: Convective heat flux from water to glazing
ρ: Density of the acrylic cover, ground surface reflectivity
qe,w–g: Evaporative heat flux from water surface to glazing
τ: Transmissivity
qr,g–a: Radiative heat flux from glazing to ambient
φ: Latitude
qr,w–g: Radiative heat flux from water surface to glazing
R: Conversion factor
t: Time (h)