LAUSR

Effect of the orientation on the yield of the stills has been discussed in this experimental work. Two identical modified stills S1 and S2 fabricated, each with 0.5 m2 of basin area. Stills had transparent glass walls with trough to collect the condensate from the walls. Mixture of highly porous coco peat and charcoal were used as basin material. Still S1 had North-South (N-S) orientation with cover slope due south whereas still S2 had East-West (E-W) orientation with cover slope due east. Experiments were conducted by changing the water quantity in the solar stills ranging from 5 to 10 kg. Maximum distillate output of 5.67 L/m2-d was obtained for S1, whereas it was 5.45 L/m2-d for S2 for an average solar radiation intensity of 695 W/m2 (25 MJ/m2-d). The increase in the yield of S1 over S2 due to the orientation was found to be in the range of 0% to 11%.Use of transparent walls increased the condenser area by 78.4%.The distillate water cost per litre was estimated as Rs. 0.86 (0.013 US$) and Rs.0.90 (0.014 US$) for S1 and S2 respectively. Energy payback time (EPT) for stills S1 and S2 was estimated as 4 months.