Performance evaluation of distillation-cum-greenhouse for a warm and humidclimate

This paper describes the performance evaluation of distillation-cum-greenho use for a warm and humid climatic condition. Numerical computations have be en carried out for a typical day in January for Chennai, India. Various tem peratures, namely plant and water, as a function of climatic and design par ameters, were obtained by solving coupled single-order differential equatio ns using the Runge-Kutta method. Room air, transparent cover, basin liner t emperature and distillate output were also worked out by using the value of plant and water temperature. Analysis showed that there is a significant e ffect in the plant, water temperatures and distillate output due to a chang e in the fraction of the solar radiation incident on the north wall (F-n), depth of water, alpha(b) and the inclination of the roof whereas the heat c apacity of the plant has a marginal effect on these temperatures and distil late output. The study revealed that vegetables can be grown in a warm and humid climate in a coastal region by the construction of a distillation-cum -greenhouse unit.