CHAPTER-2 VARIOUS DESIGN OF SOLAR COOKER 2.

1 SOLAR COOKER Cuce and Cuce Defines solar cooker as: A solar cooker or solar oven is a device which utilizes solar energy to cook food. Solar cookers also enable some significant processes such as pasteurization and sterilization. The vast majority of solar cookers presently in use are very cheap, low-tech devices. Because they use no fuel, no operational cost and zero maintenance, governments of many countries are promoting their use worldwide in order to help reduce fuel costs and air pollution, and to slow down the deforestation and desertification caused by gathering firewood for cooking. Solar cooking is a form of outdoor cooking and is often used in situations where minimal fuel consumption is important, or the danger of accidental fires is high. 2.2 HISTORIC BACKGROUND OF SOLAR COOKER (Cuce and Cuce 2012) The first experiments on solar cookers were carried out by a German Physicist named Tschirnhausen (16511708). Second attempt was made by FrenchSwiss Physicist Horace de Saussure in 1767. He constructed a miniature greenhouse with 5 layers of glass boxes turned upside down on a black table and reported cooking fruit. An English astronomer Sir John Herschel also attempts to cook food in a similar insulated in South Africa in 1830. Great French Mathematician Augustin Mouchot incorporated the heat trap idea with that of the burning mirror in 1860 and built an efficient solar oven. He also succeeded to create a solar steam engine but it was too large to be practical. In 1876, W. Adams developed an octagonal oven equipped with 8 mirrors and he reported that the oven cooked rations for 7 soldiers in 2 h. After one year, Mouchot designed solar cookers for French soldiers in Algeria, including a shiny metal cone, made from a 105.5 degree section of a circle. In 1930s India began to investigate solar energy as an option for avoiding deforestation. The first commercial box-type solar cooker was produced by an Indian pioneer named Sri M.K. Ghosh in 1945. In 1950s, Indian researchers devised and constructed commercial solar ovens and solar reflectors, but they were not readily accepted due to the lower-cost alternatives. United Nations Food and Agriculture Association (FAO) also investigated water-heating capacities of a

parabolic cooker and an oven type cooker. In 1961, a United Nations Conference on New Sources of Energy including many authorities on solar cooking technology was held. In 1970s, as a result of the increasing fuel prices due to the oil crisis, an intensive interest on renewable energy technologies was observed worldwide especially in China and India. In 1980s, especially the Governments of India and China expanded national promotion of box-type solar cookers. Mullick et al. presented a method to analyze the thermal performance of solar cookers in 1987. In 2000, Funk proposed an international standard for testing solar cookers. It was observed that the resulting solar cooker power curve is a useful device for evaluating the capacity and heat storage ability of a solar cooker. Especially in recent years, intensive efforts have been made to be able to enhance the cooking power capacity of solar cookers. 2.2.1 Journey of solar cooking, from 1767 to 2000 Table 1 Contribution of some legendary researchers in solar cooking. (Saxena et al 2011) 1767- Saussures was made efforts to cook food by sun energy. He built a small greenhouse with 5 layers of glass boxes turned upside down on a black table and reported cooking fruit 1830- English astronomer Sir John Herschell cooked food in a similar insulated box on an expedition to South Africa 1860- Augustin Mouchot was the first to combine the box/oven heat trap and burning mirrors concepts to create a solar cooker/oven. He saw great commercial potential in Frances sun-rich, fuel-poor colonies in North Africa and Asia 1876- In India, W. Adams developed an octagonal oven with 8 mirrors which cooked food for 7 soldiers in 2 h. Dr. Charles G. Abbot, Secretary of the American Smithsonian Institution, was the first recorded inventor of solar cookers in which the heat collector was outside but the cooker was inside house, with heat carried from collector to cooker by circulating oil 1877- Mouchot devised solar cookers for French soldiers in Algeria, including a shiny metal cone, made from a 105.5 section of a circle. He built a separate cooker to steam vegetables and also wrote the first book on Solar Energy and its Industrial Applications 1884- Another Smithsonian scientist, Dr. Samuel P. Langley, solar cooked meals atop Mt. Whitney in California

 1894- Xiaos Duck Shop in Sichuan, China, roasted ducks by solar cooking 1930s- India began to investigate solar energy as a substitute for dwindling wood and depletion of soil from burning crop residues and dung 1940s- Dr. Maria Telkes in the U.S.A. researched several combination types of solar cookers, including some with heat retention chemicals and published a book, Solar Ovens, in 1968 1945- Indian pioneer Sri M.K. Ghosh has been designed the first solar box cooker to be commercially produced 1950s- Indian scientists in government laboratories designed and manufactured commercial solar cookers and ovens, but they were not readily accepted, partly because there were still lower-cost alternatives. Farrington Daniels and George Lof at the U. of Wisconsin, USA, introduced concentrator cookers in northern Mexico, with some acceptance 1955- The International Solar Energy Society (ISES) began as the Association for Applied Solar Energy, whose first conference in Phoenix, AZ, USA, introduced many practical solar cookers. By then the technical basics of solar cooking were known. Exhibited solar cookers included parabolic by M.L. Ghai of India, Georg O.G. Lof (US), Adnan Tarcici (Lebanon) and S. Goto (Japan) and box cookers by Maria Telkes (US) and Freddy Ba Hli (Burma) 1961- A United Nations Conference on New Sources of energy included many types of solar cooker pioneers, including, M. Telkes, Lof, Duffie, Pruta and Abu-Hussein 1970s- Spreading deforestation prompted research and promotion of solar cooking by governments of India and China. A fuel shortage temporarily created new interest in renewable energy worldwide 1973- Barbara Kerr, USA, built many types of concentrating and box solar cookers from descriptions, including Ghoshs box cooker in India. She used simplest materials inspired by retained heat cookers (hay boxes) and developed low-cost, simple solar cookers using recycled materials and aluminium foil 1978- Kerr and Cole began small-scale production and promotion of solar cookers and planed for people to make their own. Prof. Metcalf learned about KerrCole cookers through Fred Barrett, U.S.D.A, bought one, and immediately became a regular user and

began research on their germ-killing capacities. Hurry he became a promoter of solar cookers both in the Sacramento area 1980s- The governments of India and China expanded national promotion of box cookers. A lot of researches have been carried out in this era. Brace Research Institute, McGill U., Canada, researched and field tested solar cookers. Prof. S.S. Nandwani in Costa Rica researched solar cookers. Box cookers were distributed to 20,000 Afghan refugees in Pakistan by SERVE (Serving emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprises). M.H. Gurley Larson wrote first U.S. solar cookbook, Solar Cooking Naturally, in83 Metcalf. In84 Metcalf published his 9-page instructions for building solar box cookers. ULOG was started by Ulrich and Lisel Oehler to promote box and parabolic cookers in many countries. With KerrCole instructions, solar cookers were built in Kitui, Kenya in85 1987- In India, Mullick, et al. carried out the thermal evaluation of box-type solar cookers and generated two figures of merit (F1 and F2) to find out the cookers performance 2000- Dr. Paul Funk proposed an international standard in terms of cooking power (W) for testing solar cookers and reporting performance was applied to historical solar cooker test data to show that it is a useful tool for evaluating the relative performance of dissimilar designs. Accepted also by ASAE 2.3 CLASSIFICATION OF SOLAR COOKER: 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 namely:a) Solar panel cookers. b) Solar box cookers. c) Solar parabolic cookers. as shown in Fig. 1 .

Fig.1. Types of solar cookers: (Cuce and Cuce 2012). (a) solar panel cooker. (b) solar parabolic cooker. (c) solar box cooker.

2.3.1. SOLAR PANEL COOKER: 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. This method of solar cooking is not very desirable since it provides a limited cooking power. On the other hand, this type of solar cookers is highly appreciated by people living or travelling alone. Solar panel cookers utilize reflective equipment in order to direct sunlight to a

cooking vessel which is enclosed in a clear plastic bag. It was an affordable, convenient and effective solar cooker which enabled to preserve nutrients without burning or drying out. Performance of solar panel cookers highly depend on reflected radiation thus, they do not seem effective under cloudy conditions. In recent years, some efforts have been made in order to expand the utilization areas of panel cookers. Kerr and Scott 2006 designed and built a solar powered apparatus for sterilization. They also indicated that the prescribed system can be used for cooking and food preserving purposes.

Fig.2. Panel Solar Cooker (Patil et al 2012) 2.3.2. SOLAR BOX COOKER: A solar box cooker basically consists of an insulated box with a transparent glass cover and reflective surfaces to direct sunlight into the box. 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. 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 of these parameters is vital for obtaining maximum efficiency.

Fig. 2. Components of a solar box cooker (Saxena et al. 2011).

The first solar box cooker was invented by a FrenchSwiss 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. Box type solar cooker is being mostly used for domestic applications. Temperature around 100-120o C can be achieved with a good design in the box type solar cooker on a sunny day, so that pulses, rice, vegetables, etc. can be cooked in 2-3 hours. Box type cookers are slow to heat up, but work well even where there is diffuse radiation, convective heat loss caused by wind, intermittent cloud cover and low ambient temperatures. After the 1980s, optimization of geometry parameters of solar box cookers was done by some researchers since they have a dominant effect on performance. They studied the effect of booster mirrors, concentrators, flat plate collector integrated with cooker, multi-step inner reflector, stepped outer reflector, storage unit with or without phase change materials, orientation and different glazing materials on the performance of the cooker.

Fig. 3. (a) Conventional box-type solar cooker with south facing mirror. (b) Solar box cooker with south tilted collecting surface and south facing mirror. (c) Cooker with south tilted collecting surface and north facing mirror. (d) Cooker with south tilted collecting surface, north facing mirror and a fixed south facing vertical mirror (Mirdha and Dhariwal, 2008). 2.3.3. SOLAR PARABOLIC COOKER: A solar parabolic cooker simply consists of a parabolic reflector with a cooking pot which is located on the focus point of the cooker and a stand to support the cooking system as shown in fig.4. These type of cookers attracted people immediately all over the world due to

their outstanding performance. Solar parabolic cookers can reach extremely high temperatures in a very short time and unlike the panel cookers or box cookers, they do not need a special cooking vessel. However, a parabolic cooker includes risk of burning the food if left unattended for any length of time because of the concentrated power. Parabolic solar cookers are very efficient. However conventional parabolic cookers need frequent adjustment to track the sun. It cooks at substantially constant power for two hours without adjustment.

Fig.4. Side view and top view of the reflector supported by a frame and a spacer on a flat base. The first solar parabolic cooker was developed by Ghai in the early 1950s at the National Physical Laboratory, in India. Then Lof and Fester investigated various geometries and mounting configurations of parabolic cookers.