Development of Small-Scale Multi-Effect Solar Still

The diffusion of solar distillation systems is necessary to solve a global problem on serious shortage of safe water resources in many developing countries such as Bangladesh. The solar still is required to be low cost, to have reliability for the safety and long durability, to be free from maintenance without any expendable supplies, having high performance, and it should be an environmentally friend device working without any fossil fuel. The economical balance to develop stills for residential purpose is considered. A 10 kg·day⁻¹-scale solar still was developed and the characteristics are introduced. A conceptual design of a new 20–50 kg·day⁻¹-scale multi-stage solar still is also introduced in this paper.