Hemispherical solar distiller with truncated circular cone-shaped reflector mirrors (TCC-RM): optimum inclination of reflector mirrors

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international Vol. 30; no. 13; pp. 36769 - 36781
• Main Authors: Attia, Mohammed El Hadi, Kabeel, Abd Elnaby, Elbar, Ayman Refat Abd, Abdelgaied, Mohamed, Abdallah, Abd Elkader
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-03-2023
• Subjects: Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecotoxicology; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Research Article; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Optimal inclination angle; Economic analysis; Hemispherical solar distiller; Truncated circular cone-shaped reflector mirrors; Performance improvement
• ISSN: 1614-7499; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-022-24774-z

The present study aims to achieve the highest cumulative yield of the hemispherical distillers, by designing and constructing new reflector mirrors, which are truncated circular cone-shaped reflector mirrors (TCC-RM). To obtain the optimum inclination of TCC-RM that achieves the highest hemispherical distiller’s performance, eight inclination angles (10°, 15°, 20°, 25°, 30°, 35°, 40°, and 45° with vertical) were experimentally studied. To achieve this, a series of experimental tests were carried out on the three hemispherical solar distillers: the first represents the reference distiller (traditional hemispherical solar distiller (THSD)) and the other two devices are the hemispherical solar distiller with truncated circular cone-shaped reflector mirrors (HSD-TCCRM) with different inclination angles. The experimental results indicate that utilizing TCC-RM with a 25° inclination angle achieves the maximum cumulative yield of 8.35 L/m
2
with an improvement of 42.74% compared to THSD. While the utilization of TCC-RM with the inclination angles of 30°, 35°, 20°, 40°, and 15° achieves the cumulative yield of 7.9, 7.3, 7.05, 6.67, and 6.6 L/m
2
compared with 5.85 L/m
2
for THSD. On the contrary, adjusting the inclination angle of TCC-RM at 10° and 45° affects negatively the cumulative yield of the HSD with TCC-RM in comparison with THSD. Based on the data of cumulative yield, daily efficiency, and the economic analysis it is recommended to utilize TCC-RM with a 25° inclination angle to achieve the highest performance and minimum distillate cost of hemispherical solar distillers.