Design, construction and testing of an inclined multi-layered-cloth solar desalinator for seawater.

An inclined multi-layered-cloth solar desalinator for seawater was constructed and tested during summer 1999 in Manila. The desalinator design was focused on improving the productivity of the set-up. The individual effects of two design modifications, incorporating a thermal mass to the desalinator and reducing the air space inside the desalinator, were determined. The inclined multi-layered-cloth solar desalinator used locally available materials for construction. Temperature at various points in the solar still were monitored along with hourly distillate yield from 10 am to 4 pm for ten days. Productivity values calculated after data gathering pointed out that the design featuring a reduced air cavity gave the highest distillate yield and also performed better than the basin-type solar desalinator constructed and tested in summer 1998 by a group of DLSU undergraduate students. Production cost of the distillate using this design was also estimated in this study. The distillate obtained from the solar still met physical and chemical standards for drinking water. A mathematical model used by Sharma and Mullick (1993) for predicting the productivity of a solar still using its temperature profile was used. A statistical analysis of the experimental and calculated productivity values indicated that the mathematical model used was suitable for the inclined desalinator. The model would allow prediction of the desalinator\u27s productivity at other meteorological conditions