Development of Pyramid-Shaped Solar Distillation System and Experiments with Different Absorber Coating Materials

Solar distillation still is a solar thermal application to obtain clean water with reduced total dissolved solids. Pyramid-shaped glazed solar distillation unit can help to enhance overall thermal performance. In the present work, three pyramid-shaped distillation stills with aperture area 0.21 sq.m were constructed to test the temperature profile of the absorber with different coating materials. In this work, thermal absorption capacity of copper oxide, aluminum oxide, carbon powder, activated carbon, titanium oxide micro and nanopowder is tested with black paint combination. Results of different experimental setups show that with coating materials, higher surface temperatures were achieved and water quality tests for pH and TDS show nearly similar results for all distilled output samples. The higher thermal absorptance due to coating materials may help to increase the rate of distillation and improve the yield of the distilled water output from solar distillation unit.