Performance analysis of parabolic dish solar cooking system with improved receiver designs

Abstract

Lack of access to clean energy for cooking and heating applications is one of the challenges faced by households in developing countries. Solar cooking is one of the solutions, but suffers low adoption and utilization due to various challenges including technical limitation. This study investigated initiatives on improving the technical viability of parabolic dish solar system used for direct cooking by focusing on the receiver. Three receiver prototypes namely; Insulated, Oil-filled and Air-filled, all incorporated with a base circular ring, were constructed and their performance was compared experimentally with the conventional receiver. The maximum temperature inside cooking vessels were 154 °C, 99 °C, 141 °C and 128 °C while standardized stagnation temperature and first figure of merit (F1) were found to be 159 °C, 100 °C, 154 °C and 109 °C; and 0.26, 0.15, 0.54 and 0.17, for systems with insulated receiver, oil-filled receiver, air-filled receiver, and conventional receiver, respectively. The second figure of merit (F2), overall heat loss factor, heat exchange factor and optical efficiency were determined as 0.36, 0.15, 0.14 and 0.33; 59.7 W/m2 K, 28.6 W/m2 K, 20.49 W/m2 K and 73.4 W/m2 K; 0.18, 0.75, 0.69 and 0.23; 25%, 4%, 4% and 17%. The study found that the cooking system with Insulated Receiver gave more merits and was established as the best.

A Solar Cooking Workshop for Low-Income Communities: A Social and Environmental Initiative

“…To solve this problem and increase the productivity of solar cookers, thermal storage systems are added to provide off-peak heat. This method is already well discussed in the previous literature both for storage of latent heat of fusion and also for sensible heat (Thirugnanam et al, 2020;Gokul et al, 2021;Vengadesan et al, 2021;Verma et al, 2022;Kumar et al, 2023;Wazeer et al, 2023).…”

“…The shape of the parabolic solar cookers provides precise convergent focus, allowing cooking temperatures above 150 ° C and shorter cooking times (Kedar et al, 2017;Theu and Kimambo, 2023). However, they are directional, requiring angle adjustments every 15 -20 minutes (Arunachala et al, 2020).…”

Enhancement the solar box cooker performance using steel fibers

“…These materials form 80% of the total energy consumption in the above-mentioned area. 2 In other provincial areas, such as Malawi, the total energy consumption of biomass reaches 95%. 3 Because of this, the percentage of deforestation increases and the environment deteriorates.…”

“…The inhabitants of these areas depend on their main source of energy (biomass), which comes in various forms, such as coal, wood, agricultural waste, and others. These materials form 80% of the total energy consumption in the above‐mentioned area 2 . In other provincial areas, such as Malawi, the total energy consumption of biomass reaches 95% 3 .…”