Abstract
Energy demand is increasing due to population increment and industrialization. To meet this energy demand, technologies that use renewable energy such as solar energy are being developed. A parabolic solar cooker is one of the main solar cookers, which can cook food and boil water at a high temperature within a short period. This study aimed to design, construct, and evaluate the performance of the constructed parabolic solar cookers. Moreover, this study aimed to compare the constructed cooker with firewood, charcoal, kerosene, and electricity in terms of cooking time and energy cost. The cooker was constructed using different materials such as old satellite dishes, tyres, steel, and aluminum foil. The aperture diameter, aperture area, receiver diameter, receiver area, depth of the parabola, focal length, rim angle, circumference of the circle, surface area, length of the circumference, and concentration of the cooker were 1.8 m, 2.54 m2, 0.16 m, 0.02 m2, 0.3 m, 0.67 m, 67.38°, 5.76 m, 2.81 m2, 5.76 m, and 123.46, respectively. The cooker can track the sun from north to south and from east to west. The performance of the cooker was evaluated by calculating the efficiency and power. The output energy, input energy, and average upcoming solar radiation of the constructed parabolic solar cooker were 0.182 kW/m2, 1.691 kW/m2, and 0.665 kW/m2, respectively. The efficiency and power of the cooker were 10.75% and 0.3 kW/hr, respectively. The constructed parabolic solar cooker relatively showed better performance in cooking different foods. A family, which has five members, was considered to compare the constructed cooker with other fuels in terms of energy cost of cooking. Since the parabolic solar cooker does not have any energy cost, it can save the energy cost of cooking foods. Therefore, parabolic solar cookers have a great advantage for developing countries including Ethiopia.
Highlights
IntroductionPlants use energy to prepare their food, humans use energy to cook their food, and industries use energy to manufacture different products [3]
Energy is one of the necessities to live on this planet [1, 2]
To construct a parabolic solar cooker, one old satellite dish with its base, four small tyers, steel (Ø 25 mm), adhesive, aluminum foil, and a small pot were used. e old dish was first washed with tap water to remove the dirt and dried using a clean towel. en the surface of the dish was covered with aluminum foil with the help of adhesive
Summary
Plants use energy to prepare their food, humans use energy to cook their food, and industries use energy to manufacture different products [3]. Is caused an increment in the utilization of fossil fuels. As humans become more civilized, their industries grow, which in turn increased energy demand. This started to degrade the environmental quality [7]. Global warming, which is caused by the increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels, causes the increment of the earth’s mean temperature [8, 9]
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