Productivity Augmentation of an Induced Atmospheric Air Solar Still Integrating With Immersion Water Heaters and External Reflector in Arid Region in Saudi Arabia

The aim of this study is to investigate experimentally the effect of using immersion water heaters, movable flat external reflector and a weather condition on the performance augmentation of solar still that coupled with an induced atmospheric air. Since the fresh water productivity of a solar still is low in winter season efforts was made in the present work to overcome this problem, thus experiments were carried out in April 2014 under the climatological conditions of Madinah at latitude 24° 33ˊ N, Saudi Arabia. The average daily distillate productivity of the still is examined, namely still without water heaters and reflector, still with both water heaters and an inclined external reflector. The experimental results showed that the daily amount of distillate productivity of the solar still with an induced atmospheric air is thoroughly improved using both boosting water heaters and external reflector. A remarkable increase in the distillate productivity by about 210, 312 and 366% in the first, middle and end of April respectively is obtained for still configured with two water heaters 500 W each and external reflector tilted at 20° compared to that without heaters and external reflector. The estimated cost of the fresh water produced through the considered induced air solar still that equipped with both external reflector and immersion water heaters is found to be 0.025 US$/L.