An experimental study on a novel solar basin distiller system coupling with a vacuum tube and parabolic trough solar collector

• Experiments have been done on two different main setups. • an unmodified system which is a single typical basin solar distiller. • a modified setup, which is a single slope solar still connected to a vacuum tube and a parabolic mirror collector. Due to droughts, population growth, global warming, and lack of infrastructure, freshwater resources are disappearing gradually. However, the desalination process is both energy-intensive and expensive, in which the costs outweigh the benefits. The clean and renewable source of the sun's rays is an applicable option for water desalination. In this research, a new solar basin has been designed using a parabolic trough with tracking and vacuum tubes and eliminating all the heat exchangers to increase efficiency. Many trials have been done for two different conditions to specify the implementation of the new solar still. The first condition used a single basin solar still alone. The second one used an augmented solar distiller. Different parameters such as water temperature, inner and outer glass surface temperature, and produced water collected in the basin were measured at 10 cm and 20 cm depths. The total water output at depths of 10 cm and 20 cm has increased by 159.6 % and 206.8 %, due to the adoption of the parabolic mechanism and the vacuum tube. In modified mode, the amount of desalinated water at a depth of 10 cm is 5 % more than at a depth of 20 cm, so the lower the water depth, the better the system will perform. Also, the economic analysis of this device has been done for some areas of Iran where fresh water is not available, and the economic analysis demonstrated the payback period still is less than two years.