Harnessing evacuated tube technology for enhanced solar still: A comprehensive review
A.S. Abdullah, Abanob Joseph, Gamal B. Abdelaziz, Elbager M.A. Edreis, Mohammed El Hadi Attia, Wissam H. Alawee, Swellam W. Sharshir
Abstract
• A review of coupling evacuated tube solar heaters with solar distillers has been conducted. • The performance of solar distiller types in conjunction with the heater is analyzed. • Economic and environmental assessment findings were provided. • Different solar heater coupling techniques are described • A solar still-based solar heater attained a productivity of 20.95 L/m 2 . The simplest and solar energy-based desalination method, solar still desalination, is presented in response to the expanding need for freshwater. However, as the evaporation process is essential to the functioning of solar stills, effective evaporation upgrades are required to raise the solar desalination ability. The utilization of evacuated tube technology for water heating results in an improved evaporation process that makes solar still desalination replicable. This work conducts a review study on the coupling of this technology with the various types of solar stills. The performance of each type of solar still in conjunction with a solar heater is examined throughout the study, along with the viability of doing so economically. Furthermore, a variety of environmental studies are offered on this kind of assembly to examine how it affects the reduction of carbon emissions. Additionally, the advantages of combining each form of solar still with the heaters are examined. Moreover, several evacuated tube heater designs, including tank-based, parabolic collector-based, and direct connection to the solar still, also referred to as natural mode, are demonstrated throughout the paper. Proper coupling resulted in yield, energy, and exergetic efficiencies reaching 20.95 L/m 2 , 65.48, and 6.67% which were higher than those of basic solar still by 431.7, 57.82, and 74.61%, respectively. Besides, a bibliometric analysis is conducted using the VOSviewer tool to demonstrate the contribution and trend regarding solar collector-based solar stills.