Experimental Studies to Enhance the Yield of Pure Water Quantity in a Tubular Solar Still Using Pistachio Shell Powder and Pistachio Shell Carbon Black (Biowaste Material)

In the present work, focused on augmenting the freshwater yield, thermal and exergy efficiencies, economic and environmental feasibility in the tubular solar still (TSS) with the help of utilizing an agricultural biowaste material like pistachio shell material, and carbonized black powder of pistachio shell material. Despite comprehensive work on solar desalination utilizing biowaste materials, the potential application of carbonized pistachio shell materials has not been explored for solar distillation. This study addresses the gap in the utilization of biowaste materials and demonstrates how utilizing biowaste-derived materials can provide freshwater while contributing to sustainable waste management. Three different stills-TSS, TSS with pistachio shell powder (PS), and TSS with pistachio shell carbon black (PSCB)-were investigated in the current work and examined under atmospheric conditions. The pistachio shell material is carbonized at 120°C for 12 h in a vacuum oven to obtain a carbon black powder for use in TSS to improve high water productivity. The modified tubular solar still (MTSS) operated similarly to a conventional TSS. The experiments were conducted in similar meteorological conditions. The daily yield productivities of the MTSS of PS powder and PSCB powder were about 3.4 and 4.1 kg/m², respectively, whereas the conventional TSS produced a daily productivity of 2.9 kg/m². It lead to an augmentation of 43.5% for the MTSS with PSCB and 17.24% for the TSS with the pure PS powder over the CTSS model.