In this study, an experimental investigation is carried out to assess solar still (SS) performance with a porous absorber made from activated carbon tubes (RACT) with four various arrangements based on energy, exergy, economic, environmental, exergoeconomic (EXC), enviroeconomic (ENC), exergoenvironmental (EXE), and exergoenviroeconomic (EEC) points of view. Activated Carbon (AC) is utilized as a black porous absorber. The conventional SS without porous material (SS-C) is also experimentally studied for comparison. The performance of the five models is tested under practical operating conditions. The results indicated that solar still with horizontal staggered half capacity (SS-HSC) achieved high performance depending on energy, exergy, cost, EXC, EXE, and EEC. The daily water yield of SS-HSC is about 5850 ml/m(2) with about 38.82 % decrement cost, compared to SS-C. The energy and exergy efficiencies of SS-C are augmented by about 94.14 % and 164.29 % with operating mode SS-HSC respectively. The CO2 net emissions mitigated per year based on energy and exergy concepts for SS-HSC are 31.11 and 1.19 tons respectively. The ENC parameter and the EXE analysis for SS-HSC are rated by about 451.09 $ and 17.24 $, respectively. The utilizing of RACT gives a positive impact on energy, exergy, economic and environmental performance. (C) 2021 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.