Performance study on a solar concentrator system for water distillation using different water nanofluids

The rapid growth in the world–population urges the need for potable water in various regions, especially in hot and dry regions. The main challenge in the productivity of potable water is the cost and availability of water sources. Thus, it is crucial to develop effective methods to overcome this global need. Utilizing solar power is proven to be a promising path to implementing thermal solar radiation in solar distillation applications. This work investigates the effectiveness of using concentrated solar power to irradiate heat exchange to evaporate water in a receiver, which will be collected as pure water in a condenser later. The thermal performance of the proposed model and its productivity are tested experimentally by using tap water only, and the test was repeated twice using two nanofluids namely, (aluminium oxide (Al2O3) and zinc oxide (ZnO)). The results showed that using (Al2O3) has a superior influence on the productivity of the solar unit, where the productivity is increased by 43.53% and 21.89% when compared to tap water and zinc oxide (ZnO) nanofluid respectively. The thermal efficiency of the solar unit was also increased by 9.91% (maximum) when using (aluminium oxide (Al2O3) as a working fluid compared to tap water. The model has simple components and is easy to install with a compact size, which can be developed be utilized in urban and desert areas.