Performance improvement of a conventional single slope single basin passive solar still by integrating with nanofluid-based parabolic trough collector: An experimental study

Nowadays due to advancement in nanotechnology, it is possible to prepare nanoparticles, which is very much useful to enhance the thermal properties of heat transfer fluids. A Nanofluid is advanced heat transfer fluid with dispersed nanoparticles in base fluid. This paper is about the experimental study carried out to study the effectiveness of conventional single slope solar still plant (CSP) integrated with parabolic trough collector (PTC) using Nanofluid. Experiments were carried for water and Al2O3/Water nanofluid with 0.05% and 0.1% volume fraction as a working fluid in the integrated system. The results show that pure water yield is remarkably increase using the integrated still plant. It is observed that maximum yield is found 1741 ml with 0.1% volume fraction Al2O3/Water nanofluid as working fluid for 2.5 cm saline water depth in 1 m2 basin. This shows approximately 66% and 70% rise in the yield and thermal efficiency respectively using Al2O3/Water nanofluid integrated solar still system than CSP.