Optimizing solar still performance: A response surface methodology approach to evaporation and condensation enhancement

Water crisis is a major problem across the world. It is significant to migrate for effective methodologies to meet future water demand. Solar-based desalination system is environmental friendly and suitable method for potable water yield production from saline/brackish water and also cost effective than other methods. The role of optimization study in maximizing the water yield is paramount for the performance enhancement of solar-based desalination system and its effect was insufficiently addressed. In present study, a new approach of waste scraper and double fan arrangement is introduced inside the conventional solar still (SS). Then, using response surface methodology, Box–Behnken design (BBD)-based optimization is performed to determine optimal solution for the influence of input parameters (operating Time interval, Time duration and voltage of scraper and dual fan) on the output parameter relative humidity (RH) to increase the condensation and evaporation rates of a SS, which helps to enhance the water yield productivity. Experiment is conducted at 9.672° (North) and 77.994° (East) Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Validation of experiment results is done using the BBD method. Result reveals that the analysis of variance model with double-fan arrangement inside the still shows better with optimal performance with a coefficient of determination R 2 = 97.78%, adequate precision = 46.22, RH = 76.515% than that with scraper arrangement ( R 2 = 96.7%, adequate precision = 35.76, RH = 76.327%). The optimized model exhibit promising results with statistically significant P-value less than .0001 for the both methods and its F-value is noticed that 126.96 (for a SS with scraper) and 190.66 (for a SS with double fan).The outcome of this study helps to enhance the condensation rate to produce the more amount of fresh water from hybrid photovoltaic with thermal system.