Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols. 752-753

Abstract: Solar stills as the cheapest options used to desalinate brackish water in areas having freshwater availability limitation. The purpose of this work is to investigate the water production improvement of double slope solar stills using heat absorption materials in the basin. Three similar shapes double slope passive solar stills were constructed to conduct the experiments in tropical climate of Malaysia. Each solar still had a stainless steel trough and a transparent polythene film as basin and cover respectively. Three basins each having 50 cm length, 30 cm width and 8 cm depth were used to keep the fed lake water. 2 cm depths of black soil and sea sand were added in two solar still basins respectively, while the last solar still had only stainless steel trough as basin. Experimental investigations on the solar stills performance showed that the solar still with black soil had a highest output as compared to the solar still yield using sea sand layer in basin or conventional solar still using only stainless steel basin respectively. Some water quality parameters of lake water and produced distilled water were also tested in the laboratory and indicated that the treated water met the WHO standard for drinking.