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The thermal performance of solar still can be enhanced by means of nanoparticles. The core aim of the present work is to identify the influence of nanoparticles on productivity of single-basin dual-slope solar still through the experimental investigation with different glass cover orientations of still and the varying water depth in basin. Two identical single-basin dual-slope solar stills were fabricated, and experiments were conducted at location (20.61° N, 72.91° E). In first set of experiments, comparison of productivity of the still without nanoparticles and the still with 0.1% mass concentration of aluminium oxide (Al2O3) nanoparticles has been made at different depths of water. The experiments were conducted with glass covers oriented towards East–West and North–South directions. Compared to the still without nanoparticles, enhancement of 19.40%, 28.53% and 26.59% in distilled output was obtained with Al2O3 nanoparticles at the 30 mm, 20 mm and 10 mm water depth for the North–South orientation, respectively. The enhancement of 58.25% and 56.31% in yield was obtained for 20 mm and 10 mm water depth with copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles for the North–South orientation. Compared to the still with 0.1% Al2O3 nanoparticles, 27.27% and 26.60% higher productivities were achieved at 20 mm and 10 mm water depths with the use of 0.1% CuO nanoparticles for the glass covers oriented towards North–South directions. Therefore, enhancement in thermal performance of single-basin dual-slope solar still was observed higher with the consumption of CuO nanoparticles than the Al2O3 nanoparticles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]