Development of a solar water distillation system with a mechanical sun tracker

摘要

This paper presents the design, construction and experimental study of a pure mechanical parabolic trough sun tracking device for solar distillation systems. It describes a novel design that uses a typical mechanical clock sun tracking system. A special mechanical weight-driven automated solar tracking system is achieved by a water float linked through a tow pulley to the gearbox. The gearbox is connected to a pulley on the shaft that connected to the dish. In estimating the driving weight required by the solar tracking collector system, the value of the summation of all loads is chosen as the driving load, resulting in a total mass of 1.5 kg with a force of 14.7 N. The results of water distillation yield show high percentage output of distillation of about 63% and consumes zero electrical energy, thereby increasing the overall efficiency of the system.