Combined heat and mass transfer analyses in solar distillation systems – The restrictive conditions and a validity range investigation

The present work aims at the investigation of the validity range and accuracy of earlier developed theories which have been proposed for the modeling of heat and mass transfer within confined spaces in solar distillation systems. The investigation which is based on the evaluation of agreement between theoretical results and an extensive body of earlier field and laboratory measurements covers a very wide range of operating conditions and allows a comparable validation of the earlier proposed theories. It also clearly defines the restrictions, limitations and the validity range in relationship to yield as well as to the operating temperature level, beyond which significant deviations between predictions from both the earlier Dunkle’s as well as more recent analogy models and measurements occur for practical solar stills.