Abstract
The aim of this study is to experimentally investigate the impact of several design parameters on the performance of an active solar still that is typically used to produce desalinated water. Thus, a solar still with 1 × 1 m
2
basin area and 1 m height has been designed and constructed to carry out the experiments. This solar still was integrated with a photovoltaic unit to generate electricity to power two circulation pumps (CPs) and one electric heater (EH). These CPs and EH were immersed in the water basin to increase the turbulence intensity and temperature of the water molecules in the still basin and hence increase the water productivity. The impact of varying the water depth, circulating the basin water via CPs, and heating the basin water via EH on the solar still performance has been evaluated in a conventional solar still (CSS), an active solar still (CSS with CPs), and another active solar still (CSS with CPs and EH). The experimental results revealed that the water productivity increases as the water depth decreases: the daily productivity of the CSS with CPs increased by approximately 10% when the water depth was decreased from 6 to 3 cm. Moreover, compared to that of CSS at a water depth of 3 cm, the daily water productivity increased approximately 20% and 24% in cases of CSS with CPs and CSS with CPs and EH, respectively. Finally, an economic study was carried out to confirm the feasibility of the solar still. This study illustrated that the constructed solar still is economically feasible, and the estimated benefit-cost ratio is 4.1.