Development of a thermal storage type solar cooker for high temperature cooking using solar salt

Abstract

High temperature cooking operations like frying, roasting and baking using solar energy are normally carried out at the focus of parabolic dish concentrators. This leads to heat discomfort, risk of burns or eye damage to the user. A device which stores latent heat in a phase changing eutectic mixture called “solar salt” was designed and tested, which would enable its storage in an insulated container, and cooking in the shade of a kitchen when needed. It was able to successfully store heat at its melting point of 220 °C in a charging time of 110 min. Frying temperature of 170 – 180 °C for the oil was easily obtained during indoor cooking and 0.25 kg of potato chips were fried in 17 min from one charge of heat, while a total of about 0.6 kg of rice was cooked in two successive batches from one charge, taking 20 min each.