Abstract
In the current research, the energy and economic performance in single-slope solar still using ball marbles (BMSS) has been investigated and compared the results with conventional solar still (CSS) under the similar weather conditions of Karaikal (10.92° N, 79.83° E), India, during October 2020. The experiments have been conducted on both sunny and cloudy day to evaluate the performance of solar still. The BMSS has increased the evaporation rate and productivity when compared to CSS due to the sensible heat energy stored by the ball marbles in the absorber basin. The potable water yield of the BMSS is improved by 21.23% and 22.86%, respectively, during sunny and cloudy days. The maximum cumulative productivity obtained in the BMSS is 2950 mL/m2.day and 2150 mL/m2.day, respectively, on sunny and cloudy days. In economic analysis, the payback period (PBP) of the BMSS is 5.7 months, whereas the PBP of the CSS is 6.5 months, respectively. Furthermore, the cost per litre (CPL) potable water produced by BMSS is 8% lower than the CPL of CSS.
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Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Abbreviations
- AC:
-
annual cost
- AMC:
-
annual maintenance cost
- ASV:
-
annual salvage value
- BMSS:
-
ball marbles solar still
- CC:
-
capital cost
- CPL:
-
cost per litre
- CRF:
-
capital recovery factor
- CSS:
-
conventional solar still
- FAC:
-
fixed annual cost
- PBP:
-
payback period
- S:
-
salvage value
- SFF:
-
sinking fund factor
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Units
mL millilitre
mm millimetre
cmcentimetre
m metre
L litre
°C degree Celsius
Other abbreviations
p.y potable water yield
λ latent heat of vaporization of water
Ab area of the absorber basin
G.R global solar radiation
∆t duration of the cumulative readings in sec
uη uncertainty of the efficiency
udw uncertainty in instantaneous productivity
I(t) radiation at a particular time
Wr total uncertainty
R function
w,x independent variables
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Subbarama Kousik Suraparaju—conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing (original draft).
Ramasamy Dhivagar—conceptualization, data curation, methodology, writing (original draft).
Sendhil Kumar Natarajan—conceptualization, validation, resources, writing (review and editing), supervision, project administration.
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Suraparaju, S.K., Ramasamy, D. & Natarajan, S.K. Augmentation of freshwater productivity in a single-slope solar still using ball marbles. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 65974–65986 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15117-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15117-5