Assessment of Conical Solar Stills Empowered by N-Replicated Partially Shaded PVT-CPC Collectors: Unveiling Exergo-Enviro-Economic Dynamics, Productivity, and Cogeneration Efficiency

Abstract

The economic and environmental dimensions play a pivotal role in evaluating solar still systems. The aim of this study is to evaluate the performance, efficiency, and viability of conical solar still integrated with multiple identical photovoltaic thermal compound parabolic collector (PVT-CPC) through comprehensive analyses of cogeneration efficiency, exergo-economic and enviro-economic factors, and productivity metrics. The results of this study were obtained through matlab programming, enabling accurate and detailed computations. The model has been validated at N = 0 and N = 1, showing strong correlation results: 0.96 and 0.97 for water temperature, 0.99 for yield in both cases, and 0.99 and 0.98 for glass temperature. The system has achieved a total carbon emissions mitigation of 108.29 tCO2 based on energy and 12.44 tCO2 based on exergy while recording an annual yield of 2199.61 kg. The annual cogeneration efficiency, exergo-economic parameter, enviro-economic parameter, and annual productivity are 38.96%, 31.98 kWh/$, $1570.20, and 244.68%, respectively. Furthermore, the obtained results have been compared with prior research and concluded that the exergo-economic and enviro-economic parameters for the proposed system are increased by 93.54% than the solar still with water-cooled condensing surface and 94.71% than solar still containing partially coated condensing cover with thermoelectric cooling.