The Journal of Science and Engineering Applications (JSEA)

Abstract

Water scarcity is one of the issues facing Iraq and the world, so finding green ways to desalinate water without harming the environment is one of an important factors. One of these methods is the use of solar energy in water desalination. The traditional solar distillation is one of the successful methods in water desalination, but the productivity of the traditional distillation is somewhat low per square meter, so the productivity of the traditional distillation must be improved. For that reason, a double basin solar still may improve the fresh water output by utilizing the condensation latent heat to heat the water in the upper basin instead of losing it to the atmosphere, as in the case of the conventional solar still. The present work aims to examine the solar still with a double basin for three water depths in the lower basin, 10, 20, and 30 mm, on freshwater productivity and daily efficiency. The still basin area is 400 mm × 1000 mm, with six sub-basins constructed above the first glass cover, each 1 L in volume. The experiments were performed in April 2025 under the climatic conditions of Baghdad, Iraq (Latitude: 33.315° N, Longitude: 44.366° E). The results revealed that the productivity of the double-basin solar still is inversely proportional to the water depth of the lower basin. The maximum water temperature is about 74.5 ^oC for the lower basin and 71.5 ^oC for the upper basin at 10 mm water depth. The maximum daily productivity is 6788 ml/m2 at 10 mm water depth. The overall daily efficiency was 72, 70.1, and 62.44 % for 10 mm, 20 mm, and 30 mm water depth. The double basin solar still enhances the distilled water daily for 10 mm water depth by 2.84 % at 20 mm water depth and 14.32% at 30 mm water depth.