Analisa Pengaruh Variasi Bahan Penyerap Massa Air Gambut Terhadap Unjuk Kerja Sistem Destilasi Tenaga Surya

One way to get clean or usable water from peat water is by distillation of solar water. One model of solar water distillation that can be used is the wick solar stills distillator. The two main processes of solar water distillation are the evaporation of water in the water mass absorber and the condensation of water vapor on the plastic covering. This study aims to obtain a mass absorbent material for peat water that is suitable for use in the collector of wick solar stills models. This research uses cotton cloth, burlap cloth, and towel as absorbent material to be analyzed. The water mass absorbent material used will affect the evaporation process of the distillation system and the quantity of water produced. From the test results, the absorbent material that has the best performance and the highest water yield in the solar-powered distillation system is 1760 ml cotton cloth with an average sun intensity of 534,551 Watt/m2. This is due to the faster heating process of the cotton cloth and the mass of peat water which is absorbed by the heat from the sun. The heating process affects the energy of evaporation, resulting in a faster evaporation process of the peat water mass. From the results of tests and calculations that have water mass absorbing material for the best performance on solar-powered distillators, namely cotton cloth, because the energy rate at evaporation is 124.74 Watt, the energy rate during condensation is 126.47 Watt, the distillation rate is 0,000050 kg/s, product efficiency is 35 %, and distillation system efficiency is 12 %