Innovations and ongoing advancements of the wick type solar still: A review

The largest challenges to the globe are energy scarcity, freshwater shortages, and global warming are the world's largest challenges. Fossil fuels harm the environment and intensify global warming. Solar distillation technology will replace fossil fuels sooner or later, as it produces freshwater without polluting the environment or being expensive. The distillation structure only requires exposure to the sun's rays. Solar achieving the best freshwater production with the greatest thermal energy performance and the lowest cost, solar distillers (SD) have recently experienced a number of designs. These include the stepped SD, double-slope SD, inclined SD, and pyramid SD. Most of the time, nanofluids, phase change materials (PCMs), wick materials, reflectors, organic fluids, corrugated absorber plates, flat SDs, bi-layered structures, heat localization, hybrid systems, SD with solar heaters, energy storage materials, porous absorbers, and cover cooling are used to change SDs. This essay evaluates and discusses the detailed examination of the wick type materials in solar stills with several configurations, considering the wick type floating, spinning, inclined, and corrugated. To make these materials more suitable for use in a range of applications to produce clean water, different recommendations are made. There have been many improvements, resulting in enhanced productivity rates, according to a literature review. Depending on design, geography, and accessory selection, Wicks technology increased distillers' productivity by 20%–30 %. Additionally, combining this technology with other technologies like PCMs and nanomaterials can achieve high productivity.