A FLOATING SPONGE SOLAR STILL DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE

摘要

A floating sponge solar still designed for sea water desalination is presented. Experimental evaluation of the still performance with possible practical applications are also given. These experiments were carried out on a laboratory model which was built and tested under outdoor climatical conditions. A single-sloped cover was used with four different sponge thicknesses to investigate the still performance. An optimum thickness was thus obtained for the maximum productivity This optimum thickness was found to be 150 mm for the tested material which had a density of 16 kg/m'. The maximum productivity of the still was found to be 3.1 litres/day, obtained with the optimum thickness of sponge material and the single-sloped cover. A double-sloped cover was also used with the optimum sponge thickness obtained from the previous tests to examine its effect. The results obtained show that the double sloped cover increased the productivity of the still by some 58%, to 4.9 litres/day, with the same still efficiency. These results are presented in the form of daily productivity against the water-to-cover temperature difference, the sponge thickness and the accumlative rate of the solar still productivity with time. These results are shown to be generally compatible with other published data.