Design, Fabrication and Thermal Analysis of a Stepped Solar Still with Phase Change Materials

In this research article a stepped-type solar still, integrated with phase change materials (PCM) was designed, fabricated and tested. Performance of stepped solar still was analyzed using three different PCM namely palmitic acid, bee wax white and stearic acid of different thermal properties. Comparison of stepped solar still was made with and without PCM. In addition, heat transfer coefficients were calculated with the help of Dunkle’s correlation. The productivity of stepped solar still using PCM were found as 2.234 l/m2, 2.382 l/m2, 2.424 l/m2 for bee wax white, palmitic acid and stearic acid respectively. And in case of solar still without PCM productivity was found to be 2.082 l/m2. The results showed that there was increase in the efficiency of solar stills as 14.55% in case of palmitic acid, 16.38% in case of stearic acid and 7.25% in case of bee wax white in comparison to stepped solar still without PCM.