Tilted wick solar still with flat plate bottom reflector Original Research Article

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of a tilted wick solar still with a flat plate bottom reflector extending from the lower edge of the still on four days (the spring and autumn equinox and summer and winter solstices) at 30°N latitude when the stillʹs inclination is fixed at 30° and the reflectorʹs length is the same as the stillʹs length. We propose a geometrical model to calculate the solar radiation reflected by the bottom reflector and then absorbed on the evaporating wick. We also performed a numerical analysis of heat and mass transfer in the still. We found that the bottom reflector can reflect the sunrays to the evaporating wick and increase distillate productivity of the tilted wick still when the reflectorʹs inclination is larger than about 15° on the spring and autumn equinox and winter solstice, and 25° on the summer solstice, and the average distillate value for four days is greatest when the reflectorʹs inclination is about 35° and would be about 13% greater than that of a conventional tilted wick still.