There is an ever increasing need to provide clean and portable drinking water in developing countries because of the poor quality of water, which causes various water borne diseases killing millions of infants and elderly people every year. There have been a lot of recent developments in the field of solar enabled water distillation where pure water is being generated. But a majority of the system use some type of external energy source for the system to run on which might make it efficient but can cause dependence on energy sources. The power of the Sun can be effectively harnessed and used as heat and light source for efficient steam generation. One of the challenges is to develop a low cost system which can perform at par with the best and extravagant systems.
This paper investigates the performance of the solar distillation system when activated carbon nanoparticles are used along with brine and other sources of impure water so as to obtain clean water. The activated carbon nanoparticle which are an efficient and cheap mode of water purification enhanced the productivity of the system by 190% when compared to saline water due to its steam generation properties. A solar simulator of was used to simulate the sun. Various parameters like the variation of air flow on condensation rate, height of fluid on vapor production rate and the temperature variation of the system are evaluated. Parametric studies of the effect of water quality and salinity were performed. It was determined that the optimum output rate of distilled water was 240 grams () was determined by the system from the parametric studies and the system is feasible and cost effective to be used in real world application. All of these standout features make the system a low cost option which can tackle the clean water dilemma in developing countries.
