Performance of single-slope double-basin solar stills with small pile of wick materials

•Two identical single-slope double-basin solar still was developed for experiments.•Small pile of black cotton and jute cloth were used for the enhancement in yield.•Performance of stills was evaluated for 0.01 m and 0.02 m water depth in basin.•18.03% higher yield obtained for the jute cloth compared to black cotton for 0.01 m.•Overall higher productivity was obtained for the still with small pile of jute cloth. The performance of single-slope double-basin solar stills was evaluated with the use of small pile of wick materials in lower basin of stills. For the study, two similar single-slope double-basin solar stills were developed with the small pile of two different wick materials namely jute cloth and black cotton cloth. The experiments were conducted for the two different water depths such as 0.01 m and 0.02 m in lower basin under the environmental situation of Valsad, Gujarat (20.61°N, 72.91°E) India. From the results of experiments, the enhancement of 18.03% and 21.46% in yield was obtained at 0.01 m and 0.02 m water depth for the still with small pile of jute cloth compared to the still with small pile of black cotton cloth. From the experiment, it has been observed that the still with small pile of jute cloth achieved the overall higher productivity compared to the still with small pile of black cotton cloth.