An Experimental Study on the Inner and Outer Glass Cover Temperatures of Solar Still

^1a Mechanical Engineering Department, Rewa Engineering College, Rewa (M.P.), India
² Mechanical Engineering Department, Vindhya Institute of Technology and Science, Satna (M.P.), India
³ Mechanical Engineering Department, Jai Narayan College of Technology, Rewa (M.P.), India
⁴ Mechanical Engineering Department, Rewa Engineering College, Rewa (M.P.), India
⁵ Mechanical EngineeringDepartmen,tMaulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal (M.P.) India

Abstract

The glass cover of a solar still plays a major role in its performance and efficiency since the output depends directly on the water and glass cover temperature difference. In most of the experimental studies, the outer glass cover temperatures were recorded and considered as the glass cover temperature for calculations, however the condensation on the glass cover surface depends more on the inner surface temperature than the outer. An experimental study was conducted in order to study the difference between the inner and the outer glass cover temperature difference in a conventional basin type solar still and a low thermal inertia solar still obtained by modifying the conventional still. It was observed that for the conventional still, the temperature difference was maximum upto7.14% at noon and insignificant in the morning and evening hours. For the low thermal inertia still, the difference was more upto 10.2% at around 11:00 hrs and zero during the early morning and the evening hours. A significant difference in the glass cover temperature curves for the two different types of solar stills can be seen.