Performance analysis of solar still with cow dung cakes and blue metal stones

• Published in: Frontiers in Energy Vol. 9; no. 2; pp. 180 - 186
• Main Author: PANCHAL, Hitesh N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Higher Education Press 01-06-2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: blue metal stones; Cattle manure; Climatic conditions; cow dung cakes; distillate output; Drinking water; Dung; Energy; Energy Systems; Experiments; Heat; Manures; Materials research; Metals; Porous materials; Radiation; Research Article; Solar energy; solar intensity; solar still; Solar stills; Studies; Temperature; Water supply engineering; 太阳能; 奶牛粪; 宝石; 性能分析; 有效面积; 蓝色; 蛋糕; 金属; India; solar still; blue metal stones; distillate output; cow dung cakes; solar intensity
• ISSN: 2095-1701; 2095-1698
• DOI: 10.1007/s11708-015-0361-y

The aims of this paper is to investigate the effects of various materials inside the solar still on the increase of the productivity of potable water. Here, blue metal stones and cow dung cakes were used as materials. To investigate their effect, three identical solar stills with an effective area of 1 m square made from locally available materials were tested in climate conditions of Mehsana (23°50′ N 72° 23′). The first and second solar stills were filled with blue metal, stones and cow dung cakes, while the third one was taken as a reference which consisted of only blue paint at the basin. The experiments show that blue metal stones have the highest distillate output at daytime, followed by cow dung cakes solar still and reference solar still. On the other hand, the overall distillate output of blue metal stones and cow dung cakes at daytime as well as at night were 35% and 20% compared with that of reference solar still.