Abstract
Over the past decade, the demands for fresh water and energy are growing faster than ever. The use of renewable energy, for seawater and brackish water desalination, is increasing and is currently under the spot light of international conferences. This article presents a theoretical and experimental work performed on a solar still with a pin fins absorber plate. In this work, a conventional active solar still, with a basin area of 0.5m(2) and a glass cover at an inclination of 30 degrees to the horizontal fixed on the top part of the still, has been designed, and tested with conventional absorber plate (thin-layer absorber plate), and pin fins absorber plate under the same climatic condition. Desalination of the brackish water using a solar still with conventional absorber plate and pin fins absorber plate is theoretically and experimentally compared. The heat transfer energy balance equations for the various elements of the active solar still are formulated, numerically solved, and validated. The experiments were conducted in the High Institute of Technological studies of Gafsa, Tunisia, during two successive winter days, 21 and 22 January 2014, respectively, for the conventional and modified solar still. The results show that using the pin fins absorber plate in the active solar still increases the daily productivity by 12%.