Solar stills made from waste materials Original Research Article

Technology for solar desalination has been studied for a long time as a process friendly to the environment and also energy saving. We found a new aspect by diverting attention from industrial mass production systems to the consumerʹs life-style and resource recycling problems. Thus, desalting solar stills made from waste materials were studied. A type made from a polypropylene tray and polyethylene wrapping sheets was subjected to laboratory tests at steady and unsteady states for heat and mass transfer analysis. The beam strength was substituted by referring to the data the of Meteorological Agency on August 6, 2000 [total solar radiation 26.27MJ/(m2·d)]. The maximum water productivity was delayed 2 h from that of the beam strength. Total productivity of water per day and 1 m2 was measured as 3.54 kg and calculated as 2.35 kg. The result indicated the need to improve the performance and the direction of development of the solar still. This concept could be especially worthwhile for producing water without any harm to the environment by utilizing renewable solar energy.