A review on passive and active solar still using phase change materials

Abstract Solar energy is becoming the future energy of the world and global markets are gaining the demand for the alternate source of energy considering the detrimental effects of global warming on the environment. Valuable research has been conducted towards the applications of thermal systems with energy storage materials to enhance the efficiency in an effective manner. Solar desalination systems have proven to be an effective system to replace conventional ones. These phase change materials along with nanomaterials has the capacity in order to improve the thermal performance and cost-effective as a whole and to enhance the overall productivity of such systems. This review paper tries to amalgamate the worldwide trends and methods that have been experimented with respect to integrating latent heat storage materials in solar stills. Along with productivity enhancements, exergy analysis is also introduced to determine the irreversibility’s in the previously mentioned system. the demand of more efficient system will rise in future due to ever increasing scarcity of water in the whole world. To solve this issue, solar desalination would be the only approach to desalinate sea water at large level.