Abstract
•Performance of modified still with water fan and wind turbine was investigated.•Performance of stills is influenced by the fan speed and water depth.•FSS productivity is higher than that of conventional still by 17% at 3cm and 30rpm.•The daily efficiency of FSS is improved to be 39.8%.•Daily productivity of still increases with raising the wind turbine speed.
This investigation explores the potential benefits of using water fan inside a conventional solar still (CSS) to solve the problems in our previous work (Kabeel et al., 2012) under different conditions. Two stills, CSS and fan solar still (FSS), were constructed and tested under environmental conditions. The fan fixed inside the FSS was operated using a wind turbine. Different water depths of FSS (1, 2, 3 and 4cm) were investigated. It was found that the distillate of still increments with integrating the fan. During experimentations, the maximum productivity of FSS is achieved at water depth of 1cm for fan rotational speeds less than 22rpm, and at 3cm for speeds greater than 22rpm. Using water fan in CSS enhanced the daily productivity by about 17% at 3cm and 30rpm. Whilst, the daily efficiency of fan still was approximately 39.8% compared to 36.7% in our previous work at the same conditions.