Performance correlations for basin type solar stills

Many experimental and numerical studies have been done on different configurations of solar stills to reach the optimum design by examining the effect of climatic, operational and design parameters on its performance. Some of the most important parameters investigated were solar radiation, cover tilt angle, brine depth. and using dyes with the brine. The majority of the investigators presented their results in scatter diagrams rather than correlations. Four correlations are derived in this work to illustrate the effect of solar radiation, dyes, cover slope and brine depth on the productivity of the basin type solar still using the available data given by the different investigators. The correlations developed illustrate that the still productivity could be influenced by the brine depth alone by up to 33% and by the tilt angle alone by up to 63%. A cover tilt angle of about 30 degrees gives the highest productivity. The still productivity could be enhanced by adding dark soluble dye to the brine by up to 20%. The still productivity increases with the increase of insulation thickness of the still and the solar radiation received. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.