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A comparative study of hemispherical solar stills with various modifications to obtain modified and inexpensive still models

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Abstract

The present study aims to obtain the best modification of the hemispherical solar distillers that achieves the highest productivity with the lower inexpensive. To achieve this goal, this paper dealt with conducting a comparative study, operating performance analysis and an economic study of two different modifications, and comparing them with the reference distiller in order to obtain the best adjustments that achieve the highest productivity at the lowest cost. In the first modification, CuO nanoparticles with three different concentrations (0.1, 0.2, and 0.3%) were added to the basin water, to increase the intensity of absorbed solar energy, improve the thermal properties of basin fluid, and then increase the rate of vapor generation inside the distillation basin. In the second modification, water film glass cooling technology with three different flow rates (1.5, 2, and 2.5 L/h) was utilized to increase the water vapor condensation rate. In this experimental study, three hemispherical distillers were fabricated and tested under the same climate conditions at a 1-cm basin fluid depth, namely, conventional hemispherical solar still (CHSS), hemispherical solar still with glass cover cooling (HSS-C), and hemispherical solar still with CuO-water-based nanofluid (HSS-N). The experimental results presented that the average daily accumulative yield of CHSS is 3.85 L/m2/day, while the daily accumulative yield of HSS-N increases to 5.75, 6.40, and 6.80 L/m2/day with improvement 49.3, 66.2, and 76.6% at volume fraction 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3%, respectively. Also, the daily accumulative yield of HSS-C increases to 4.9, 5.35, and 5.7 L/m2/day with improvements of 27.3, 39, and 48% at water film flow rates of 1.5, 2, and 2.5 L/h, respectively. The cost of distilled water produced from CHSS is 0.0106 $/L, while the utilization of HSS-C (2.5 L/h) and HSS-N (0.3%) reduces the cost of distilled water to 0.0072 and 0.0066 $/L, respectively. Based on accumulative yield and economic analyzes, it is recommended that the modified HSS-N (0.3% volume fraction) be utilized to achieve the highest accumulative yield and the lowest price of the produced distilled water.

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Abbreviations

CHSS:

conventional hemispherical distiller

HSS-N:

hemispherical distiller with CuO-water-based nanofluid

HSS-C:

hemispherical solar still with glass cover cooling

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physics Department, Faculty of Exact Sciences, University of El Oued, 3900, El Oued, Algeria

    Mohammed El Hadi Attia

  2. Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University, Tanta, Egypt

    Abd Elnaby Kabeel & Mohamed Abdelgaied

  3. Faculty of Engineering, Delta University for Science and Technology, Gamasa, Egypt

    Abd Elnaby Kabeel

  4. Mechanical Department, Faculty of Technology and Education, Suez University, Suez, Egypt

    Gamal B. Abdelaziz

Authors
  1. Mohammed El Hadi Attia
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  2. Abd Elnaby Kabeel
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  3. Mohamed Abdelgaied
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  4. Gamal B. Abdelaziz
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Contributions

Mohammed El Hadi Attia: conceptualization, experimental work, writing—original draft, writing. Mohamed Abdelgaied: conceptualization, investigation, resources, writing—original draft. Gamal Abdelaziz: review and editing, methodology, investigation, writing—original draft. Abd Elnaby Kabeel: supervision, review and editing

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Correspondence to Abd Elnaby Kabeel.

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Attia, M.E.H., Kabeel, A.E., Abdelgaied, M. et al. A comparative study of hemispherical solar stills with various modifications to obtain modified and inexpensive still models. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 55667–55677 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14862-x

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