Published Paper Details:

Solar desalination has emerged as a sustainable and environmentally friendly solution to address the growing global demand for potable water, particularly in arid and remote regions where conventional water treatment technologies are economically or logistically unfeasible. With increasing freshwater scarcity driven by population growth, industrialization, and climate change, solar stills offer a simple, low-cost, and renewable energy-based desalination method. However, despite their advantages, conventional solar stills suffer from inherently low productivity due to limited heat absorption, poor evaporation rates, and significant thermal losses, which restrict their large-scale applicability.To overcome these limitations, recent research has focused on enhancing the performance of solar stills through hybridization techniques, among which the integration of solar air heaters has shown promising potential. This review paper aims to systematically analyze and synthesize existing experimental studies on hybrid solar stills coupled with solar air heaters to evaluate their effectiveness in improving distillate yield and overall thermal efficiency.The review methodology involves a comprehensive literature survey of peer-reviewed articles obtained from reputed journal databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Springer, covering publications primarily from 2010 to 2025. Selected studies are critically examined based on experimental configurations, operating conditions, climatic influences, and performance metrics such as daily yield, efficiency, and cost analysis.Key findings from the reviewed literature indicate that the integration of solar air heaters significantly enhances basin water temperature, accelerates evaporation rates, and improves overall system productivity compared to conventional solar stills. Additional augmentation techniques such as the use of phase change materials (PCM), nanofluids, external condensers, and optimized basin geometries further contribute to performance improvement. Among these, combined systems incorporating solar air heaters with thermal energy storage and advanced materials demonstrate the highest efficiency gains and yield enhancements.In conclusion, hybrid solar stills integrated with solar air heaters present a viable and efficient solution for improving desalination performance. Future research should focus on optimizing system design, integrating advanced materials, conducting long-term field studies, and performing economic.