Abstract
Desalination by solar stills is one of the most cost-effective methods for producing freshwater from seawater or wastewater. For enhancing the freshwater production rate, a transparent film coated with titanium oxide was applied to the condensing cover of the solar still. A comparative experiment using a solar still applied with the film as the cover and a conventional one with glass was conducted from November 2001 to January 2002 at Osaka. The water production rate of the solar still with the film averaged 750g-water/m^2/day, equivalent to 1.2 times higher than that of the conventional one, even in the winter season. This improvement could be explained by higher transmission coefficient for solar radiation and higher hydrophilicity of the film than that of glass.
