Enhancing Productivity of V-Trough Solar Water Heater Incorporated Flat Plate Wick-Type Solar Water Distillation System

This experimentation deals with the comparative study of a flat plate wick-based solar water distillation system (SWDS) with and without V-trough (VT) solar collector (SC) under the actual environmental conditions of Salem, Tamilnadu, India, as an attempt to enhance the productivity of the solar water distillation system. The influences of wick material, solar intensity, flow rate, and ambient temperature on productivity are also proposed. To ensure accuracy in the experimentation, the overall observation is divided into four spells with four different wick materials. The hourly productivity of the proposed still is compared with the standard theoretical equation, and the deviation between them is well accepted with ±10.14%. The maximum convective and evaporative heat transfer coefficients are observed during spell 3 as 2.488 W/m²K and 25.321 W/m²K, respectively. The prediction of Nusselt number and Sherwood number are also proposed to validate the heat transfer and mass transfer, respectively. Compared to polyester, terry cotton, and jute wick materials, fur fabric wick yielded maximum productivity of 4.40 l/day and 6.29 l/day for SWDS alone and SWDS with VT, respectively. The results revealed that the productivity of the SWDS coupled with V-trough SC is 30.12% greater than SWDS alone.