Experimental Investigation of an Integrated Inverted Solar Trickle Still

In this paper, an inverted trickle solar still is coupled with a boiler in order to study the results of pre-heating the water entering the still. The boiler is embedded into the system in order to simulate the exact performance of a flat plate collector. The inverted trickle solar still produces pure water by the simple process of evaporation and condensation. Brackish water of 6000 ppm is fed into the inverted still which flows on the backside of the absorber plate. Several experimental runs were carried out at different flow rates in order to determine the optimum working flow rate of the still. The maximum productivity of the still was found to be 1.91 L/day and the maximum hourly efficiency was found to be 20% at a flow rate of 0.7 g/s. Pre-heated water at 60° and 80° was fed into the inverted trickle solar still. Based on the results obtained, the still gave a better performance at 80° compared to 60°. The maximum productivity was found to be 3.2 L/day at a preheated water temperature of 80°. The maximum hourly efficiency of the still reached 36.75%. This result was obtained when the still operated at a flow rate of 1.6 g/s.