Solar Cooker - A Review Joshi
Solar Cooker - A Review Joshi
Solar Cooker - A Review Joshi
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Smita Joshi
G H Patel College of Engineering and Technology (GCET)
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Abstract
Alternate source of energy is always a green approach of energy consumption, in the time of crises of
energy and global warming. Use of solar energy for cooking is better solution, but still not established
as user friendliness and economic aspect. Food is the basic need of human being. Food can be cooked
with conventional fuels like wood, cow-dung, kerosene, Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) and electricity.
Solar cooker is clean and eco-friendly energy device for cooking. There are large number of solar
cookers designed and developed by the scientists and researchers all over the world but still the
utilization of solar cooker is not sufficient. There are many reasons for the insufficient uses of solar
cooker like, its bulky size, heavy weight, lack of open place, slow cooking, fixed timing for cooking,
less awareness etc.. In this paper different solar cookers like solar panel cooker, solar parabolic cooker,
solar box type cooker and hybrid solar cooker etc. are discussed in detail. Still lot of modifications are
required to make the solar cooker user friendly, lighter in weight, smaller in size and still economic.
Development of a photovoltaic and thermal hybrid solar cooker has started a new horizon in the field
of solar cookers as the cooking is faster than conventional box type solar cooker and can be used at
users convenient time. The cooker was converted into solar dryer by small modification and was used
for drying vegetables. Still lots of scopes are there for research in solar cooker especially for small size
domestic solar cookers.
Key words: booster mirrors, Photovoltaic effect, solar cooker, solar dryer, sun basket
1. Introduction
A solar cooker is a device which utilizes solar energy to cook food. Solar cookers also enable some
significant processes such as pasteurization and sterilization. It is a clear fact that there are countless
styles of solar cookers in the world and they are continually improved by researchers and manufacturers.
Therefore, classification of solar cookers is a hard work. However, it may be asserted that most of the
solar cookers today fall within three main categories called solar panel cookers, solar box cookers and
Solar panel cookers may be considered the most common type available due to their ease of construction
and low-cost material. In solar panel cookers, sunlight is concentrated from above [1]. This method of
solar cooking is not very desirable since it provides a limited cooking power. On the other hand, this
Fig. 1 (a) solar panel cooker; (b) solar parabolic cooker; and (c) Solar box cooker.[2]
Solar panel cookers utilize reflective equipment in order to direct sun- light to a cooking vessel which
is enclosed in a clear plastic bag. Solar panel cooker of Dr. Roger Bernard (CooKit) is one of the most
popular designs in this category [3]. Only cardboard and foil shaped was utilized to manufacture the
CooKit. It was an afford- able, convenient and effective solar cooker which enabled to preserve
nutrients without burning or drying out. Bernard also investigated how the solar cooking technology
is taken up by populations [4]. Performance of solar panel cookers highly depend on reflected radiation
Another simple concentrating type solar cooker is known as sun basket. The sun basket is basically a
parabolic mirror, made from paper mache, reinforced by a layer of jute fabric and held in place by a
bamboo frame. The reflector lining is an aluminium foil which is glued on the inner side of the basket.
For fabricating the sun basket a mound of cement concrete of parabolic shape is made on the
ground. This is done with the help of a previously fabricated plywood frame of parabolic
shape, which is revolved on the masonry work while still soft. A bamboo basket is woven in
such a way that it fits exactly over the shape of parboiled mound. At the same time, paper
mache is prepared from 5kg of shredded waste paper, 2kg of wheat flour, 1kg of fenugreek
flour and sufficient quantity of water to make a thick pulp. The ingredients are mixed well and
heated to nearly boiling temperature. The mould is then covered with one layer of water-
soaked newspapers so that the paper mache would not stick to the mould. The paper mache is
then pasted in a layer of about 1.2 cm thick and well-pressed upon the paper covered mould. On
top of this, the bamboo basket is then placed and pressed well onto the wet surface. The paper mache
is then taken out. silver foil the inside of the paper mache is then pasted with for reflecting solar rays
Nine sheets of (40*60 cm.) silver paper are necessary for a basket. For cooking purposes, the sun basket
is focused towards the sun and the cooking pot is suspended from a tripod stand. It is claimed the sun
basket under clear sky conditions can cook rice in 10 minutes and dal in 20 minutes. One liter of water
can be brought to the boiling point in 5 minutes. The sun basket is estimated to be equivalent to 700
History of solar cooking technology started with the invention of box-type solar cookers. The first solar
box cooker was invented by a French–Swiss naturalist named Horace de Saussure in 1767. Especially
in the twentieth century, this solar cooker type demonstrated a considerable development in terms of
design and performance parameters. A solar box cooker basically consists of an insulated box with a
transparent glass cover and reflective surfaces to direct sunlight into the box [7]. The inner part of the
box is painted black in order to maximize the sunlight absorption. Maximum 4 cooking vessels are
placed inside the box [8, 9]. A detailed description of solar box cookers is illustrated in Fig. 2 Each
component of the box cooker has a significant influence on cooking power. Therefore optimization
After the 1980s, researchers especially focused on optimization of geometry parameters of solar box
cookers since they have a dominant effect on performance. In this context, some researchers analysed
the booster mirror effect on efficiency of box-type solar cookers. Dang [10] investigated the
concentrators for flat plate collectors and explained that booster mirrors can be utilized in order to
increase the efficiency of solar collectors since it provides extra solar radiation. The results indicated
that the effectiveness of concentrators highly depends on the angle of mirrors. Garg and Hrishikesan
[11] presented a comprehensive analysis of a system consisting of a flat plate collector integrated with
two reflectors. They proposed a model which was numerically simulated for conditions prevailing in
three different Indian stations for three different months. They found that the enhancement is maximum
for the month of December in all the three stations for both horizontal and tilted surfaces. Narasimha et
al. [12] comprehensively analyzed the solar cookers augmented with booster mirrors. They provided a
single adjustable booster mirror to a solar box cooker and calculated the total energy falling on the
cooking aperture for the latitude of 18 N (Warangal City, India) and for different declinations of the
sun. Energy contribution by the booster mirror increase significantly with an increase in latitude of the
location.
Buddhi et al. [13] designed and analyzed a solar cooker augmented with three reflectors and a phase
change material storage unit. The experimental results showed that late evening cooking is possible in
the solar cooker proposed. Algifri and Al-Towaie [14] carried out a research in order to study the effect
Insulation in a solar box cooker should not be limited to the walls of the frame box and absorber tray
since a remarkable amount of heat loss occurs through the glazing. In this context, Nahar et al. [15]
carried out some studies on utilization of transparent insulation material (TIM) in solar box
cookers. Under an indoor solar simulator, they tested a hot box solar cooker with glazing surface
consisting 40 and 100 mm thick TIM. The stagnation temperature with the 40 mm TIM was found to
be 158 C, compared with 117 C without the TIM. A double reflector hot box solar cooker with
TIM was designed, constructed, tested and its performance was compared with a single reflector hot
Sonune and Philip [16] developed a Fresnel type domestic SPRERI concentrating cooker. The cooker
was found capable of cooking food for a family which consisted of 4 or 5 people. The highest plate
bottom temperature was calculated 255 C in approximately 40 min while ambient temperature was 30
Prasanna and Umanand [17] developed a hybrid solar cooking system as shown in Fig. 3 where the
solar energy was transported to the kitchen. The thermal energy source was used to supplement the
It is a clear fact from the literature that solar cookers are very promising devices in the upcoming future.
However, there are some handicaps concerning the solar cooking technology. Perhaps, the most
challenging point of solar cookers is that they are not able to serve when the sun goes down. Some
researchers performed intensive efforts on solar box cookers in order to allow late evening cooking.
PCMs were considered as a solution in most cases. Bushnell [18] designed, constructed and evaluated
a solar energy storing heat exchanger as a step toward a solar cooking concept. The methods for
describing the system performance were explained and applied to a test system containing a controllable
replacement for the solar input power. This first stage of this research work followed by a heat
exchanger, which was connected to a concentrating array of CPC cylindrical troughs. Author also
described the size of the solar collector area and mass of PCM mass needed in order to provide adequate
energy for several family-size. Different researchers have studied ionic liquid for heat storage in solar
The small scale Photovoltaic and Thermal Hybridized (Casserole type) solar cooker as designed and
developed was developed [22] tested for the performance with (a) Thermal Energy Storage materials
(TES), sand (b) Ionic liquids (IL) BF4- and PF6- [23-25]. The cooker was modified and made users
friendly all time working solar cooker and The maximum utilization of the solar cooker was studied by
cooking different dishes in it [26,28]. The hybrid cooker was made more efficient by tracking the solar
panel with dual axis solar tracker [29].The hybrid cooker was converted into solar dryer and was used
5.0 Conclusion
Scientists all over the world have made large number of efforts in developing different types of solar
cookers for many decades. Although it can be one of the best alternative for cooking, it is hardly
accepted by the society. There are many reasons for that like lake of awareness, large size, bulky
models, slow cooking, highly dependent on weather conditions, fixed cooking time etc, The hybrid
solar cooker which can work for all time and can cook faster than the conventional solar cooker has
being designed and developed which if commercialized can become competent to the conventional
Acknowledgement
Authors wish to acknowledge Prof A R Jani, Hon. Director SICART for guidance and motivation for
References