DESALINATION

Desalination 143 (2002) 173-182

ELSEVIER www.elsevier.com/locate/desal

Modeling and performance analysis of a solar desalination unit

with double-glass cover cooling

Mousa Abu-Arabi”‘, Yousef Zurigat”, Hilal Al-Hinaib, Saif Al-Hiddabib

“The Middle East Desalination Research Center, PO Box 21, AI-Kuwair 133, Oman
Tel. +968 695351, ext. 32; Fax +968 697107; email: mousa@medrc.org.om
bDepartment of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University,
PO Box 33, Al-Khod, Muscat 123, Oman

Received 18 August 2001; accepted 20 December 2001

Abstract
In this study modeling and performance analysis of a single-basin solar still with the entering brine flowing between
a double-glass glazing were investigated. The base area of the solar still is 1 m*. The function of this arrangement is to
lower the glass temperature and thus increase the water-to-glass temperature difference. This results in improved
performance represented by a faster rate of evaporation from the basin. The performance of the still is compared with
that of a conventional single-glass cover solar still under identical weather conditions. The results show that the relative
performance of the stills depends on the level of insulation used. For perfectly insulated stills the conventional solar still
is superior while the double glass is superior when heat loss exceeds a certain value. The hourly and daily productivities
of the stills and the temperatures of the water and the glass covers were also predicted under the meteorological
conditions of Muscat, Oman,

Keywords: Solar desalination; Solar still; Double-glass solar still; Modeling

1. Introduction
In many parts of the world, especially in the
Middle East, desalination has become a reliable
source of fresh water. The different methods used
*Corresponding author.
in desalination are based on thermal or membrane
principles. Among the thermal methods used is
solar distillation. Interest in solar distillation
stems from the fact that areas of fresh water
shortages have plenty of solar energy. Moreover,
its low operating and maintenance costs made it

Presented at the European Conference on Desalination and the Environment: Water Shortage. Lemesos, Cyprus,
28-31 May 2001.

001 l-9164/02/$- See front matter 0 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
PII: SO01 l-9164(02)00238-2
174 M. Abu-Arabi et al. /Desalination
an attractive method in areas remote from the
electricity supply grid.
Different designs of solar stills have emerged.
The single-effect solar still is a relatively simple
device to construct and operate. However, the
low productivity of the solar still triggered initia-
tives to look for ways to improve its productivity
and efficiency. These may be classified into
passive and active methods. Passive methods
include the use of dye or charcoal to increase the
solar absorptivity of water, applying good
insulation, lowering the water depth in the basin
to lower its thermal capacity, ensuring vapor
tightness, and using reflective side walls [l].
Active methods include the use of solar collec-
tors [2] or waste heat [3] to heat the basin water,
the use of internal [4-6] and external [7-81
condensers or applying vacuum inside the solar
still [9] to enhance the evaporation/condensation
processes, and cooling the glass cover [3,10-131
to increase the temperature difference between
the glass and the water in the basin and hence
increase the rate of evaporation.
In a conventional solar still, the heat of
vaporization received by the glass cover gets lost
to the surrounding areas mainly by convection
and radiation. The radiation and the convection
losses are relatively small, leading to an increase
in the glass temperature and reduction in the
temperature difference between water in the
basin and the glass. This adversely affects the
rate of vaporization and hence the still producti-
vity. The glass temperature can be reduced by
cooling. This has been accomplished by flowing
water film over the glass cover [3,10-121 or
flowing water between a double-glass cover
~2,131.
Tiwari et al. [3] investigated the effect of
water flow over the glass cover of a single-basin
solar still on still productivity. In their still an
intermittent flow of waste hot water in the basin
was maintained. They varied the inlet waste hot
water temperature in the basin between 30°C to
143 (2002) 173-182
55°C. The daily productivity increased with the
increase of mass flow rate of the waste hot water
and its inlet temperature, provided that it is above
ambient temperature. They also concluded that
the temperature of the flowing water over the
glass cover remains of the same order as the
ambient temperature. Although the effect of
water flow over the glass cover was incorporated
in their analysis, no results on this effect were
reported in their paper. The effect of water flow
over the glass cover of a simple (conventional)
solar still was also investigated by Lawrence et
al. [lo]. They conducted numerical simulations
that were validated using their own experiments
for a typical summer day. Their results show that
the efficiency of the solar still increases as the
water film flow rate increases and this increase is
more significant at large heat capacity of water
mass in the basin. In their analysis, Lawrence et
al. [lo] neglected the heat capacities of the glass
cover, the flowing water, the basin liner and the
insulation in addition to the absorptivity of the
flowing water.
Abu-Hijleh [ 1l] and Abu-Hijleh and Mousa
[ 121 theoretically investigated solar still perfor-
mance with flowing water as a film over the
cover of a single-glass cover still. In the latter
study [ 121, evaporation from the flowing film
was included in the analysis, which was
neglected in the previous study by Abu-Hijleh
[ 111. It was reported that with the proper use of
film cooling parameters, the still efficiency could
be improved by as much as 20% when account-
ing for evaporation from the film and by 6%
without considering evaporation.
According to Tiwari [ 11,the cooling by flow-
ing water between a double-glass cover was
investigated numerically by Prakash and
Kavanthekar [ 131.It was reported that significant
improvement was achieved mainly at low water
mass in the basin. Later, Singh and Tiwari [2]
numerically compared the thermal performance
of a solar still having a double-glass cover
 M. Abu-Arabi et al. /Desalination 143 (2002) 173-182 175

cooling with and without a collector against a

conventional solar still with and without a
collector. They concluded that there is a
significant enhancement in the still productivity
due to the cooling effect, but no enhancement due
to the availability of hot water from the collector.
In both analyses, the heat capacity of glass
I Basin Liner: black-painted
Insnlatia’
covers, flowing water, and basin liner was
assumed negligible. Also, the absorption of solar Fig. 1. Schematics of the double-glass solar still.
radiation in the flowing water was neglected.
Based on the foregoing, it may be concluded
Basin (b):
that there is a limited number of studies
published on the performance of double-glass
solar stills. Furthermore, the results published are dTb
-dt =mM,-qc,,-, - c&s
mcc*b (1)
very brief and of limited scope. In this study the
solar still with double-glass cover cooling is
Water in basin (w):
modeled and further analyzed without making the
assumptions made in the previous investigations.
That is, the thermal capacity of still elements is
accounted for. Moreover, performance analysis
=IctjA,,,+qc,b-,,,+ q,,f- !$,,,t-gJ
(2)
was conducted under a wide range of parameters.
The numerical simulations conducted in this - qc,w-gl - qcvp
study cover different weather conditions, i.e., one
typical summer day in June and one winter day in
Lower glass cover (g,):
March for Muscat, Oman, in addition to different
geometric and flow conditions.
mC
g pg dt
dTgl
---WAg, + qr,w-gl + qcJq-gl+ 4,

2. Mathematical model - %gl -WY- %gl -g2 (3)

A schematic of the solar still analyzed in this
Water film (WI):
work with water-cooling between double-glass
cover is shown in Fig. 1. In writing the energy
balance for each component of the still, the ti&/$ dx = %,l-wf- qc,Mpg2 (4)
absorptivities of the water in the basin and those
flowing in the double-glass channel are
neglected. Furthermore, the heat capacity of the
Upper glass cover (g2):
cooling water is neglected and its temperature is
assumed to vary only in the stream-wise
direction. Under these assumptions the resulting mC --
dTg2 - WA,~ + 4,,,+,2 + qrglglg2
system of differential equations describing the g pg dt
(5)
physical model of a double-glass solar still is
described below. - qrg2-0 - %g2-0
176 M. Abu-Arabi et al. /Desalination 143 (2002) 173-182

Condensation rate: he,b_w = 135 W/m2.K (14)

dm
dt - h~ (Tw- Tgl)/ h:g (6) qtoss = Ub (Tb- Ta) (15)

For a single-glass (conventional) solar still, qwf= ~hC~ (T f@x=L- T 1;,,,) (16)
with Eqs. (1) and (6) remaining the same, the
other differential equations become:
qr,w-g,=hr, w-g,(Tw-Tgl) (17)
Water in basin (w):

dr~ hr,w_gl = geffO[(Tw+273.15)4- (Tg1+273.15) 4]

mwCpw dt - l(t)Aw + qc, b - w - q r , w - g
(7)

Glass cover (g):

- qc,w-g - qevp
.[t+:.. 1]. (19)

% qc,w-gl=hc,w-gl(Tw-Tgl) (20)
m g Cpg d t - l(t)Ag + qr,~-g + qc,w-g + qevp
(8)
- qc,g-a - qra-a
hc,w_g1 (21)

Expressions for the various terms in the above

equations are:
= 0.884 Tw-Tg,+ ~ - 7 7 J

Ag I = (1-pg)Ctg (9)
qevp= hevp(T~-Tgl) (22)

Ag2 = (1-o:g)Agl (10)

hew = 16.273 x 10 -3 hc,w_g1 (Pw-Pgl) (23)

Aw = (1-pg-Agl-Ag=)a w (11)
qr,g2-a = h,'.g2-s~ (Tg2- T ) (24)
A~ = (I- pg-AgI -A g2 -A w) a b (12)

k,2+27315),-(+273.15)4]
(13) (rg - to) (25)
 M. Abu-Arabi et al. /Desalination 143 (2002) 173-182 177

mb = 7.8 kg, Cp, = 0.473 kJ1kg.K. The basin

(26)
heat loss coefficient (U,) was varied from 0 to
14 W/m’.K. The cooling water flow rate was
(27) varied from the minimum of 100 to 2000 g/s.
The above system of equations is a nonlinear
system of ordinary differential equations and is
(28)
solved numerically with an adjustable time-step
procedure.

%g2-a = h @-&2-q (29)

3. Results and discussion
The simulations were carried out for two
h cg2-n = 2.8 + 3.0 Vti, (30) typical days (one in March and one in June) with
the climatic conditions of Muscat, Oman. The
total solar radiation for these two days is shown
For the conventional still, g, and g2are re-placed
in Fig. 2. The inlet temperature of the cooling
with 6 in Eqs. (9) through (30).
water flowing between the double-glass cover
Since the flow rate in the channel is small, the
was assumed constant at 25°C.
flow is predominantly laminar and the heat
Fig. 3 shows the integrated yield of the stills
transfer coefficient is found from [ 141
with time for the stated conditions in March.
Clearly, the double-glass solar still with water-
(31)
12001
1
For Reynolds numbers greater than 2 100, the
Nusselt number is determined by linear inter-
polation between laminar and turbulent flow
relations, i.e., between Eq. (3 1) and the Sieder-
Tate equation [ 151. Thus,

hcgl _ (NW
-wf
6 (32)

+ R;--;ooo [(0.023Re”%‘r (l/3))_ 4.01

J

The radiative and thermophysical properties

of the solar still components used in this study
are: for the glass cover ag = 0.0475, mg= 5.4 kg,
Cp,= 0.8 kJ/kg.K; for water a,”= 0.0, m,= 20 kg, Fig. 2. Total solar flux on a horizontal surface for
Cp, = 4.178 kJ/kg.K; for the basin C$ = 0.95, Muscat, Oman [ 161.
178 M. Abu-Arabi et al. /Desalination 143 (2002) 173-182

3% 20 22 24 IO 12 14 16 10 20 22 24
kifi -0

Fig. 3. Cumulative productivity of stills for March (VI,”= Fig. 4. Temperature variations of stills different elements
20 kg, U, = 14 W/m’.K, 6 = 5 mm, r,,, =25 “C, Ijzyf,in= in March (m, = 20 kg, U, = 14 W/m’.K, 6 = 5 mm, T,/=
0.2 l/s). 25”C, “i, in = 0.2 l/s).

70-

65-

EZ_

!a-

45.
I_
c
40

35.

M-

Fig. 5. Cumulative productivity of stills for June (RI,, = Fig. 6. Temperature variation of stills different elements
20 kg, U, = 14 W/m’.K, 6 = 5 mm, Tw, = 25°C &,,” = in June (m, = 20 kg, U, = 14 W/m’.K, 6 = 5 mm, T,/=
0.2 l/s). 25°C i,, = 0.2 l/s).

cooling is superior. There is a 34% increase in
productivity compared with the conventional
solar still. The reason for this increase is quite
obvious from the temperature profiles shown in
Fig. 4 for different still elements. Fig. 4 shows
that the difference between the water and the
glass temperatures is higher for the double-glass
solar still. At its peak, this temperature difference
is more than double that for the conventional
solar still (22°C compared with 9°C for the
conventional still). Because of cooling, the temp-
eratures of the glasses for the double-glass solar
still (T,, and Tg2)always remain below ambient.
In the summer season, the above behavior
 M Abu-Arabi et al. /Desalination 143 (2002) 173-182 179

6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24

Fig. 7. Cumulative productivity in June for perfectly Fig. 8. The stills evaporation heat transfer coefficient for
insulated stills compared with that for U,, = 14 W/m’.K two different values of basin heat loss coefftcient, U, in
(m,” = 20 kg, 6 = 5 mm, r,“,= 25”C, kxi,, = 0.2 l/s). June (m, = 20 kg, 6 = 5 mm, T,,,= 25’C, ?&,,, = 0.2 l/s).

“%\*
3.5
I-“_.. _.._.._.......
_ _ _._......
_. . .._.......
_.._,,.,._. 2%_-“_~.
‘NII
. ..
i
0.5 1 /A’:ZG
.._..........,.,....,...... .,R ‘L... ~...!!!!&.._1
I 2 4 6 8 10 12
-N.
14
-*-v- , I
3O '8 8 10 12 14 16 10 20 22 24
Ub (W/m2.K)

Fig. 9. Variation of daily productivity of the stills in June Fig. 10. Performance of stills with dye (a, = 0.8) and
for different values of U, (m,” = 20 kg, 6 = 5 mm, 7$= without dye (~1, = 0.0) (m, = 20 kg, U, = 14 W/m’.K,
25°C “i,, = 0.2 l/s). 6 = 5 mm, T,/= 25”C, &J i,,= 0.2 l/s).

persists. Fig. 5 shows the still’s productivity as a the conventional solar still drops below the
function of time for a typical day in June. An ambient temperature as the glass cools by radia-
improvement in performance of 35% is achieved tion to the sky. For the double-glass solar still,
for the double-glass solar still compared with that the glass temperature remains below the ambient
for the conventional still. The temperature because the cooling water temperature remains
variation of different still elements is shown in constant at 25°C.
Fig. 6. At night (7 pm) the glass temperature for The above-mentioned results are simulated for
 M. Abu-Arabi et al. /Desalination
Fig. 11. Effect of double-glass spacing on cumulative
productivity of a double-glass solar still in March (m, =
20 kg, U, = 14 W/m2.K, T,,= 25”C, kxin = 0.2 I/s).
Uj,= 14 W/m’.K. Assuming a perfectly insulated
basin (U, = O.O),the above behavior is reversed,
as shown in Fig. 7. This is explained by examin-
ing the behavior of evaporation heat transfer
coefficient for both stills (see Fig. 8). Perfect
insulation of solar stills increases the maximum
water temperature (not shown) by 67% and 32%
for conventional and double-glass stills, respect-
ively.
Fig. 8 shows that the resulting increase in h,_,
is 30% for the double-glass still while it increases
by 155% for the conventional still. The cut-off
value of U, for the reversal in behavior may be
found using Fig. 9, which shows that for U,>6,
the performance of the double-glass still is higher
than the conventional one. Also shown in Fig. 9
is the effect of the cooling water inlet tempera-
ture on the daily productivity of the double-glass
still. The above conclusion regarding the perfor-
mance of the double-glass still holds. However,
at low values of basin heat loss coefficient
(U, < 5), the productivity is higher for higher inlet
temperature of the cooling water.
Fig. 10 shows the effect of dye addition on the
performance of solar stills for summer and winter
143 (2002) 173-182
..-...
_,. ._........-.......__._.._..-_..
-..-.__._.
=ls 16 17 10 1s 20 21 22 P 24
Time (hr)
Fig. 12. Cumulative productivity of a double-glass solar
still in June for different values of cooling water flow rate
(m,, = 20 kg, U, = 14 W/m2.K, 6 = 5 mm, T,,= 25°C).
under the conditions indicated in the figure
caption. Floating charcoal with a black dye is
considered being added, so the absorptivity of
water (a,) would be 0.8. There is good enhance-
ment due to dye addition. In June, improvements
of 12% and 17% for double-glass and conven-
tional stills, respectively, were achieved. In
March, these improvements were 14% and 18%,
respectively.
The effects of double-glass channel spacing
and the cooling water flow rate are depicted in
Figs. 11 and 12. These effects are seen to be
insignificant under the conditions used in the
simulations as shown.
4. Conclusions
In this study modeling of a solar still with
cooling water flowing between a double-glass
cover has been conducted. The model accounts
for thermal capacities of the still elements. The
single-glass (conventional) solar still was also
modeled for comparison purposes. Comparative
performance analysis was conducted under the
climatic conditions of Muscat, Oman. Flowing
 M. Abu-Arabi et al. / Desalination I43 (2002) 173-I 82 181

cooling water between the double-glass cover between basin and surroundings,
increased the solar still productivity. The results W/m* OC
show that the relative performance of the stills Vwind - Velocity of wind, m/s
depends on the level of insulation used. For
perfectly insulated stills, the conventional solar
Greek
still gives a higher yield, while the double-glass
gives a higher yield when a reasonable value for a - Absorptivity
the heat losses from the basin to the ambient is E - Emissivity
included in the simulation. Parametric assess- Eeff - Effective emissivity
ments of the double-glass solar still show that the 6 - Double-glass spacing
effects of the cooling water flow rate and the P - Reflectivity
glass spacing on productivity are small. 0 - Stefan-Boltzman constant, 5.6697
x lo-’ W/m* K4

5. Symbols Subscript
A - Absorptance a - Ambient
- Heat capacities, J/kg “C
CP b - Basin
- Hydraulic diameter, m
Dh c - Convection
h - Heat transfer coefficient, W/m*‘C g - Glass
hevp - Evaporative heat transfer coeffi- - Lower glass cover
SC1
cient, W/m2 “C g2 - Upper glass cover
h - Latent heat of vaporization, J/kg r - Radiation
I$) - Solar intensity, W/m* w - Water in basin
m - Mass, kg wf - Water flowing between double
- Mass of condensate, kg
4 glass
- Mass flow rate of water, kg/s
wf b-w - Basin to water
p” - Vapor pressure, Pa g1-g2 - Lower glass cover to upper glass
Pr - Prandtl number, C, P./k cover
- Convection heat transfer rate,
9E g*-a - Upper glass cover to ambient
W/m* g2-sky - Upper glass cover to sky
- Heat transfer rate by evaporation,
4 evp w-g, - Water to lower glass cover
W/m2
- Rate of heat loss from still through
9loss
insulation, W/m*
- Radiation heat transfer rate, W/m* References
4r
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