Solar Still Coupled With Solar Collector and Storage Tank

Acute shortage of good, clean drinking water is a major problem for most developing countries of the world. In most cases, ponds, streams, wells and rivers are often polluted that they are unsafe for direct use as drinking water.Often water sources are brackish and or contain harmful bacteria. Therefore cannot be used for drinking.In addition there are many coastal locations where sea water is abundant but potable water is not available. Solar distillation is one of the important methods of utilizing solar energy for the supply of potable water to small communities where natural supply of fresh water is inadequate or of poor quality.In this direction an experimental performance analysis was carried out on a single basin still compared with FPC coupled one. Test were carried out for different water samples namely borewell water, sea water, river water for a water depth of 20 mm.Measurement of various temperatures solar intensity, distillate water collected from north and south slope were taken for several days under local climatic conditions. The study shows that single basin still productivity enhances by 42 percent for borewell water, 40 percent for sea water and 45 percent for river water when the still coupled with FPC Flat Plate Collector,The various other tests like chlorine content, Total hardness, Calcium content, Electrical conductivity, TDS, pH value, were carried out in the laboratory and found that water is safe and pure for drinking. Solar distillation becomes very attractive in expensive long term low technology system especially useful where the need for small plant exist