Design and Performance Analysis of an Innovative Single Basin Solar NanoStill

The provision of fresh water is becoming an increasingly important issue in many areas of the world. Clean water is a basic human necessity, and without water life will be impossible. The rapid international developments, the industrial growth, agriculture and population explosion all over the world have resulted in a large escalation of demand for fresh water. The solar still is the most economical way to accomplish this objective. The sun’s energy heats water to the point of evaporation. When water evaporates, water vapour rises leaving the impurities like salts, heavy metals and condensate on the underside of the glass cover. Solar distillation has low yield, but safe and pure supplies of water in remote areas. The attempts are made to increase the productivity of solar still by using nanofluids and also by black paint coat- ing inside the still basin. Heat transfer enhancement in solar still is one of the key issues of energy saving and compact designs. The essential initiative is to seek the solid particles having thermal conductivity of several hundred times higher than those of conventional fluids. Recently, as an innovative material, nanosized particles have been used in sus- pension in conventional solar still water. The fluids with nanosized solid particles suspended in them are called “nanofluids”. The suspended metallic or nonmetallic nanoparticles change the transport properties, heat transfer characteristics and evaporative properties of the base fluid, The aim of this paper is to analyze and compare the enhanced performance of a single basin solar still using nanofluids with the conventional water. They greatly improve the rate of evaporation and hence the increase in efficiency.