CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the review of related literature and studies that are being reviewed

for the success of the study and have connection and relevance to the present research. The

following information was retrieved from books, articles, journals and internet which is related

to the said study.

1. RELATED LITERATURE

Solar energy

Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the sun that is harnessed using a range of ever-

evolving technologies that has a variety of applications such as solar heating, solar thermal

storage system, photovoltaic, solar architecture and artificial photosynthesis

(http://en.wikippedia.org/wiki/solar_energy). Solar energy is the most abundant form of

renewable energy in the planet. The sun emits energy at a rate of 3.8x1023KW, out of which

only 60% can reach the surface of the earth (HArdik Naik, et al 1016).

Water heater

Water heating is a thermodynamic process that uses energy source to heat water above its

initial temperature. There are many sources of heat used in water heating but the use of fossil

fuel is the very common. The domestic uses of water heating include cooking, bathing, and

cleaning. There are many alternative sources of heat used in water heating. The most common

now a day is the used of electricity but this alternative is costly. Because of the cost of the fuel

and other alternative many researchers studied the solar water heating.
1.1 PRINCIPLES OF SOLAR COOKERS

Solar Cooker is a device that traps solar energy and uses it to heat or cook food. This

device works within these three principles: concentration, absorption and retention. Solar

cookers are typically designed to achieve temperature that ranges from 65° to 400° on sunny

days. Solar cooker is one of the most significant solar energy applications

(http://www.electronicshub.org/solar-cooker-information/).

Solar cooking consist to use solar energy to cook food and prepare it for human

consumption, to carry out this; these things are needed: collect the solar radiation, convert it to

heat and then Retain the heat and transmit it to food through cooking pot walls (A. Harmim,

2014).

1.2 TYPES OF SOLAR COOKER

Box type solar cooker

Box type solar cooker is the most common and widely used solar cooker for personal and

domestic used. Many countries in the world used this type of cooker as substitute for gaseous

fuels and wood. A box type solar cooker consists of an insulated box with a transparent glass

cover, the cooking vessel, absorber plate and reflectors. The box is usually equipped with

reflectors to reflect sunlight into the box. The wall inside the box is coated with black color to

increase the heat absorption of the box. Its type of cooker can generate a temperature over 100°

to 150° so it is possible to cook food by boiling. In this type of cooker the speed of cooking

depends on the cooker design and its efficiency (Balusamy V.K., 2015).
Concentrating type solar cooker

Under the concentrating type, the cooker that concentrates the light from above and the

cooker that concentrates the light from below. Concentrating type solar cooker is further divided

into parabolic dish/trough, spherical, cylindrical and Fresnel but the most common one is the

parabolic dish/trough. Concentrating type solar cooker usually works with a single or a dual

tracking. In concentrating solar cookers, the cooking pot is placed at the focus of a concentrating

mirror. Concentrating type solar cooker is working on one or two axis tracking with a

concentration ratio up to 50 and temperature up to 300 C, which is suitable for cooking.

Concentrating cookers utilize multifaceted mirrors, Fresnel lenses or parabolic concentrators to

attain higher temperatures (Balusamy V.K., 2015).

2. RELATED STUDIES

A recent study of Centre de Développement des Energies Renouvelables, Algeria on a

box type solar cooker with finned absorber plate is being conducted on the Sahara dessert. The

study is conducting an experiment on two cookers one with finned plate and the other has an

ordinary plate absorber. The experimental solar cookers consist of two exactly similar solar box

cookers. It consists of wooden case; internal sides of case and bottom were thermally insulated

by a layer of date palm bark. The recovered insulator has a fibrous structure. The case is

provided with an inclined movable double-glass cover hinged to one side of the case at the top.

The two internal lateral sides are covered by aluminum foil and on the opposed side to the

aperture area a mirror of 60 cm by 49 cm is fixed by screws. This mirror increases solar

irradiation on absorber plate surface. The door, inclined at 45°, consists of a movable double-

glass cover separated by 1.5 cm. The thickness of each glass sheet is 4 mm. The study concluded

that finned absorber plate improves the performances of the box type solar cooker by reduction

of the cooking time by 12% compared to an ordinary absorber plate; this was obtained by the

improvement of the heat exchange between absorber plate and internal air. The stagnation

temperature for box-type solar cooker equipped with a finned absorber was about 7% more than

box-type solar cooker equipped with an ordinary absorber (Harmim A., 2010).

Department of Mechanical Engineering of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana

India made an optimally inclined box type solar cooker with a parallelepiped cooking vessel

design and compares it with the conventional solar cooker. After conducting their experiment

they found out that the inclined solar cooker with a parallelepiped cooking design has 40% more

cooking power than the conventional solar cooker. They concluded that the inclined one receives

more solar energy than the other.

 Box type solar cooker with asymmetric compound parabolic concentrator was developed

by the department of mechanical engineering in Algeria. The design was consist of insulated box

with a vertical double glazing cover on a side and two linear parabolic reflectors fix on the

glazed side of the cooker. After experimenting the said cooker they concluded that the cooker

shows a successful performance, the experiment was conducted in summer and winter season.

They concluded that the cooker is very advantageous for it does not need solar tracking.

The Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Tanta University, Tanta Egypt

experimenting a box type solar cooker with outside and inside reflectors. The cooker was based

on analytical solution of energy balance equation. The researcher found out that the inside

reflectors plays a big role in attaining the high efficiency of the cooker.