Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, a new radiation model for a single-slope solar still has been developed which for the first time takes into account the effect of all walls of the still on the amount of incident solar radiation on the water surface and each wall. In this model, the walls are projected on the cover to calculate the amount of beam radiation received by any components inside the still. This is in contrary to the previous models in which stills' walls were projected on a horizontal surface and their shadows on the water surface and the walls were either neglected or not computed properly. The predictions of the proposed model are compared with the experimental data obtained in the present work... 

Solar collecting area is one of the most important operating parameters of active solar stills. No experimental work has been performed to investigate the effect of this parameter to date. Furthermore in all of previous theoretical studies the effect of solar collecting area was examined during only the first 24-hour period of the operation of stills with one specified brine depth. However the present work experimentally studies the long-term simultaneous effects of collector area and brine depth on the performance of active solar stills. For this purpose four parallel active solar stills with different collector areas were fabricated and experiments were conducted for 5 consecutive days... 

In this work, the effect of the number of stages on the productivity of a multi-effect active solar still was experimentally investigated for the first time. Moreover, system performances in continuous and non-continuous modes were compared. For this purpose, indoor experiments were conducted on 4 similar solar still devices with different stages (1-4 stages) in order to accurately control the environmental conditions. In addition, water production was hourly measured during the whole 24-h experiment. The results show that with increased number of stages, distillate production can be predicted with a quadratic function. Moreover, adding a maximum of 6 and 10 additional stages can... 

In the present work, effects of height, length, and width of a single-slope basin-type solar still on its distillate production was investigated. For this purpose, a radiation model was developed which accounts for the influences of all walls on quantities of received solar radiation by the base and saline water of the still. Moreover, in this radiation model, the side walls of the still were considered as the trapezoid and the diffuse as well as beam components of solar irradiance were separately taken into account for the first time. Abilities of the present model were compared with earlier ones. Furthermore, the predictions of the current model were compared with the present experimental... 

In this work, the individual and interaction effects of three key operating parameters of the photocatalytic disinfection process were evaluated and optimized using response surface methodology (RSM) for the first time. The chosen operating parameters were: reaction temperature, initial pH of the reaction mixture and TiO2 P-25 photocatalyst loading. Escherichia coli concentration, after 90 minutes irradiation of UV-A light, was selected as the response. Twenty sets of photocatalytic disinfection experiments were conducted by adjusting operating parameters at five levels using the central composite design. Based on the experimental data, a semi-empirical expression was established and applied... 

One of the most important operating parameters which affects the performance and efficiency of active solar stills is brine depth. In all of the previous experimental or theoretical studies, effects of water depth were investigated during only the first 24-hour period (or even shorter periods) of the operation of active solar stills. In other words, only the first day was taken into account. However, the production of an active solar still depends on several parameters such as brine temperature at sunrise (initial temperature), which are all affected by the depth variation after the first day of operation. However, the present research experimentally investigates the long-term effects of...