Performance Evaluation on single-slope solar desalination Still Integrated with phase change material

In this study, the performance of the single-slop solar desalination still integrated with phase change material was investigated. Firstly, among the three phase change materials of stearic acid, cetyl alcohol and C-18 paraffin, one of them was chosen as a suitable phase change material which exhibited the best performance. Stearic acid was chosen due to higher melting point that cause more heat transfer to the feed and higher efficiency. Then the amount of the feed water was optimized and we found that the solar still with 1.225 liter of feed exhibited the best performance. From the temperature analysis, it was found that when the sunlight is reduced, the presence of the phase change material lead to increase the efficiency of the solar still, as in the case without the phase change material the volume of the produced fresh water was 1654 ml while in the presence of the phase change material this amount was increased to 1708ml.