EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF SOLAR STILL WITH VARYING PRESSURE

The shortage for the pure water exists in many developing countries like India even though three fourth of the earth is sheltered by water. The main reason behind this is the unplanned growth of industry and uncontrolled growth of population. In this context, solar still may serve as an efficient solution for addressing pure water shortage in hot climatic areas facing scarcity of water. Solar still is a very simple device that can be used for converting the available non-potable water into potable water. Various water purifiers based on solar energy have been proposed in literature but most of them are having low water output. This paper presents a novel method of a solar water purifier operating under vacuum to enhance its productivity. An experimental investigation of a scaled model has been carried out and it was observed that productivity of solar still increases with decrease in pressure inside the still.