LAUSR

Abstract Direct generation of drinking water from ambient air using sunlight is of great interest for many populations. Here, a new desiccant mechanism using a highly hygroscopic silica gel was tested on the double-slope half-cylindrical basin solar still (DS-HCBSS) to extract the water content from the ambient air. As this mechanism is new to be applied into the solar still, an experimental and predictive study was conducted to investigate the thermal performance of the solar still under this modification. The modification was done in a double-slope half-cylindrical basin solar still, which has four longitudinal fins from inside to increase the surface area. The basin liner of the solar still and the fins were covered by a layer of silica gel with a thickness of 1.5 cm. A parabolic trough solar collector was used to raise the temperature inside the solar still during daytime solar illumination. The productivity of the DS-HCBSS with silica gel was enhanced by about 72% and 166% when longitudinal fins and longitudinal fins with gravels were used, respectively. Moreover, the efficiency of the DS-HCBSS with silica gel was increased by 15% and 35% when longitudinal fins and longitudinal fins with gravels were used, respectively. The best accumulated productivity (400 mL/m2) was recorded for the DS-HCBSS with silica gel, longitudinal fins, and gravels. Finally, a Neuro-fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) model was employed to predict the process response (productivity) of the investigated systems under different process input factors (ambient temperature and solar irradiance). The predictive model obtained a good agreement with the experimental results. The experimental results revealed that the double-slope half-cylindrical basin solar still with the modification provides a new concept for Air Water Harvesting (AWH) and atmospheric water generation.