A numerical study on the effect of the heat sink as condenser on the performance of passive solar still

A theoretical work is presented to study the effect of using heat sink as condenser on the performance of passive solar still. Single acting solar still facing the south with pure saline water is used in this work. During this study, a heat sink of a tip fin is used as a condenser instead of vertical glass plate of the conventional passive solar still. The theoretical model of the energy balance equations for each component: the basin water, the cover glass, the basin base and the condenser of the solar still were presented. The theoretical model was numerically solved by using MATLAB to assess the temperatures of the various components, the desalinated water productivity, and the system performance. To examine the validity of the model, the numerical results were compared with the available experimental data in the literature. It is found that the numerical results were in close agreement with the experimental data for both the components' temperatures and output productivity. A comparison of the performance of the studied solar still and the conventional solar still is presented. The results showed that the maximum productivity and efficiency of the solar still with heat sink as condenser are 0.8756 kg/m².hr and 61.72 %, respectively comparing with 0.4305 kg/m².hr and 30.35% for conventional solar still at the same conditions. Additionally, heat sink as condenser increases also the performance of the solar still compared to conventional solar still.