Conceptual context of tilted wick type solar stills: A productivity study on augmentation of parameters

•The current study reviews all solar distillation tilted wicks from 1985 to 2020.•It suggests to investigate the forced circulation within wick-type basin to increase the condensation and accordingly, the efficiency.•Different wick materials exert wide range of impacts continuous solar efficiency.•The hybrid multi-effect diffusion unit with different tilted wick-type configurations is the novelty.•For industrial applications, tubular still with wick seems to be the most suitable model. Life, on earth, is active only because of water devouring. Nature has provided a number of water resources such as surface water for instance rivers, lakes, springs, ground water and so on. By artificial means, man has created water storage systems such as excavated dams, check dams, reservoirs, tanks etc., to meet the basic water requirements throughout the year. But ever-growing population and poor water management skills of individuals have driven the globe towards serious water crisis. Solar distillation fills the gap between water scarcity and water productivity and remains one of the simplest methods of producing pure drinking water. Though many models in solar stills are being used across the globe, tilted wick type still excels with outstanding performance in the production of pure water. In this review, an attempt has been made in particular to study the factors that are involved in increasing the performance of tilted wick type solar distillation stills. This review covered the initiatives taken from the year 1985 being the first initiative in tilted wick type model to final tilted wick model on 2020 based on published articles.