Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 1614e1620

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Technical Note

A novel application of a Fresnel lens for a solar stove and solar heating
M.M. Valmiki, Peiwen Li*, Javier Heyer, Matthew Morgan, Abdulla Albinali, Kamal Alhamidi, Jeremy Wagoner
Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 30 September 2009 Accepted 22 October 2010 Available online 23 November 2010 Keywords: Solar energy Fresnel lens Solar stove Heating Cooking

a b s t r a c t
This paper presents a novel design and the prototyped solar cooking stove which uses a large Fresnel lens for the concentration of sunlight. The technology demonstrates high safety and efciency of solar cooking and heating using Fresnel lenses which are low cost and available from off-the-shelf. The stove has a xed heat-receiving area located at the focal point of the lens. The sunlight tracking system rotates the Fresnel lens about its focal point in both zenith and azimuth angles. The tracking is accomplished through a revolving motion of two rotation arms that hold the lens and a horizontal rotation of a platform that the lens system stands on. The rotation of the arms tracks the sunlight in zenith plane, while the rotation of the platform tracks in the azimuth plane. Since the solar tracking allows the Fresnel lens to concentrate sunlight to a xed small heat-receiving area, relatively low heat loss and high energy efciency is made possible. The heat is used to maintain a stovetop surface at temperatures around as high as 300  C, which is practical for cooking applications in a very safe, user-friendly, and convenient manner. The system also demonstrates the possibility of transferring heat using a working uid for indoor heating and cooking. Wider applications using the system for solar thermal collection and utilization are also undergoing development. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Heating for food processing or cooking consumes a signicant amount of energy [1,2]. In many third-world regions people rely heavily on tree wood and biomass for heating houses and cooking food [3]. Therefore, signicant damage to the environment and smoke-related health problems are common consequences in the third-world [4]. It has been well recognized worldwide that using less fossil fuels and implementing more sustainability in energy supplies are vitally important to the health and stability of the global economy, environment, and humanity [5]. These facts result in an increasing demand of utilizing renewable energy for household heating and cooking. Solar radiation is a major renewable energy source that has a sustainable and enormous supply. It is expected that solar energy harvesting and utilization for heating and electricity generation will continue to garner increasing attention in the immediate future. It is well known that electrical energy is often generated by using larger supplies of other types of energy [6]. For example, the energy conversion efciency from solar energy to electrical energy

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 520 626 7789; fax: 1 520 621 8191. E-mail address: Peiwen@email.arizona.edu (P. Li). 0960-1481/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2010.10.017

is normally in the range from 10 up to 25 percent under the current technologies. Therefore, using solar-based electricity for heating is much less economical than direct use of concentrated solar heat. Although solar energy for cooking has long been craved by human beings, completely safe and user-friendly solar cooking devices are still not available to the public even now. From the best knowledge about solar cookers reported by Solar Cookers International (http://www.solarcookers.org/), it is known that safety and sun burning are still big concerns of using traditional solar cookers. Fig. 1 is a typical example of simple solar cooking using traditional solar cookers or ovens. To cook in front of a reective parabolic dish collector or a box-type solar cooker, people are often subject to strong and concentrated sunlight, causing sunburns and blinding. Furthermore, the relative inconvenience of sun tracking in traditional solar cookers has limited their use worldwide. The research team by the current authors has challenged the safety and user-friendly issues in solar cookers by using Fresnel lenses. The novel system design essentially accomplished a goal of highly safe and efcient solar heating and cooking. The prototyped system considered consumers who are demanding both sustainable and convenient use of solar energy in both the developed and developing worlds. The system would have an initial carbon-footprint and cost due to manufacture, but thereafter requires only contingent maintenance. It is very promising that traditional carbon-emitting fuel and

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advancement and replication producing. Therefore, it is more appropriate to view this prototype as a proof of concept. Details of the prototype and some test results will be introduced in the following sections. 2.1. Fresnel lens assembly & sun tracking In the past, a Fresnel lens could be a large glass piece used in lighthouses [9]. Recently Fresnel lenses have been machined with micro ridges from thin plastic sheets. These thin and lightweight lenses have been applied in back-projection, large-screen televisions. Lenses from used at panel TV sets might be used for making the solar cooking device, streamlining the sustainability with components from other industrial products. Essentially, Fresnel lenses can be scaled as large or as small as desired, restricted only by fabrication capabilities. In this way, Fresnel lens, such as the one in the current prototype solar stove, can be designed for any desired sunlight power input. Modern Fresnel lenses are mostly made of plastic. Traditional transparent plastic material can withstand reasonably long exposure to sunlight with very small degradation. Ultra violet (UV) radiation absorbed by the plastic can cause slight loss in transmission and strength. However, this has been mitigated in modern plastic material, such like Plexiglas, which is also called polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). PMMA is the ideal commercially available material for the current application due to its high transparency and exible strength. Researchers exposed PMMA to sunlight continuously for 17 years in the semi-arid desert south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, and observed surprisingly low loss in transmission [10]. Another study also reported signicant durability of PMMA in UV radiation [11]. UV and abrasion-resistant coating is available nowadays to reduce or prevent lens surface from damaging (erosion, scratching, pitting), as reported in Ref. [11]. In the current prototype solar stove, the at PMMA Fresnel lens (from Green Power Science, LLC), in a size of 0.95 m 1.25 m and thickness of 2 mm, is chosen for its lightweight, exibility, and costeffective properties. After framing the working area of the lens is 0.86 m 1.16 m. The lens weighs 2.27 kg and cost for around $120 as an off-the-shelf product. It has a focal length of 1.04 m and a focal point of 35 mm in diameter. The incident sunlight can be concentrated by the lens by a factor of 1229 times. As shown in Fig. 3(a), the lens assembly holds the Fresnel lens in a conguration that can be rotated about the lens focal point while providing rigidity. The concentrated light is absorbed by one of its

Fig. 1. Reective cooker in Nairobi by Solar Cooking International [7].

electrical stoves may eventually be replaced by solar stoves when combined with solar thermal storage devices. 2. A novel solar stove using a Fresnel lens The prototyped device in this work serves as a proof of concept of both outdoor and indoor use of a novel solar cooking stove. A properly implemented system is projected to maximize efciency, safety, and the convenience of using solar energy for cooking and heating. As schematically illustrates in Fig. 2, the system is comprised by several components including: a thin giant Fresnel lens with a frame and two holding arms, a box enclosure housing suntracking components, an aluminum chamber with one of its surfaces receiving concentrated sunlight and another serving as an outdoor cooking/heating surface, a heat transfer uid loop, and an indoor cooking/heating surface. Through solar tracking, the plastic Fresnel lens concentrates sunlight to a small xed focal area, which minimizes heat losses due to exposure of the hottest surface to air, and thus high energy efciency can be maintained [8]. This system may also have an added benet of energy storage to supply heat when sunlight is off. A conventional solar stove does not have such a function. The thermal energy storage also allows the system being developed for application beyond cooking. Fig. 3 includes two photos of the prototype solar stove developed based on the concept presented in Fig. 2. While keeping the basic concept, the design choices can be exible for future

Fig. 2. Schematic view of the solar thermal loop.

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Fig. 3. Solar stove demonstrated at National Mall in Washington, DC, USA. (a) full view of solar stove; (b) cooking food on a sunny day.

surfaces of an aluminum chamber, which transfers heat to its neighboring surface that can reach sufciently high temperature for cooking/heating. The heat loss of a hot body to the environment increases with increasing surface area [8]; therefore, to minimize the heat collection area, which is the hottest part, the system is so designed that the sunlight focal point in an entire day remains stationary. To accomplish this, the lens rotates about its own focal point, although the angle of incidence of the focused light on the heat collection surface varies. The aluminum chamber remains at a xed location. As a consequence, the style of sun tracking in traditional solar panel heliostat is not suitable to the lens in the solar stove because the lens focal point must be kept stationary. As seen from Fig. 3, the rotation box that the lens system rests on can rotate in horizontal plane to track the azimuth angle, while the lens assembly arms can rotate to track the zenith angle. A sundial attached to the arm of the lens assembly can be referenced to precisely track the sun manually. When the sundial needle points precisely to the sun, it should not have shadow; otherwise, a tracking adjustment is needed. The arms, holding the lens frame, are 1.5 m long with pivot rods at a distance equal to the focal length of the lens. To track the zenith angledthe suns height angle from the horizon, the lens assembly rotates about the two pivot rods. A crossbar connects the two arms at the other end that is opposite to the lens plane. This provides a necessary rigidity of the lens system. The tracking adjustment mechanism for zenith angle is based on a modied car jack, of which two channel linkages were used, as shown in Fig. 4. One linkage is xed to the underside of the stove table, and the other to the center of the crossbar of lens assembly. The threaded rod, which drives the crossbar to move, extends through the box tabletop for user access. The user-accessible end of the threaded rod has a hex head which can be easily rotated using a socket wrench. As the rod is rotated, the threads push or pull the crossbar, thereby rotating the lens assembly about the pivots. The driving force to rotate the threaded rod is very small, with minimum needed effort. Furthermore, the threaded rod functions as a locking mechanism so that the lens will remain locked in the desired location. The box tabletop provides structural support for the lens assembly. Inside the box it houses the zenith sun-tracking assembly,

and a thermal uid circulation system, including mineral oil loop piping and a pump. A turntable bearing (lazy Susan) xed to the underside of the box base allows for full 360 azimuth rotation. The pump can drive the hot mineral oil (from the aluminum chamber which received focused sunlight) to another cooking surface a distance away. 2.2. Heat collection and cooking surface The outdoor cooking hot plate, as shown in Fig. 5(a), is the surface of a hollow aluminum chamber with the hot plate adjacent to an angled heat collection surface. A small area on the heat collection surface absorbs the concentrated sunlight. The solar heat is then conducted to the cooking surface and also to the mineral oil inside the chamber which is part of the overall oil loop. Within the chamber, the

Fig. 4. Altitude tracking mechanism on lens system.

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Fig. 5. Heat collection and stovetop on the aluminum chamber. (a) Chamber and insulation box; (b) Focal point and light shield; (c) Oil inlet and outlet on the chamber.

natural convective circulation of mineral oil contributes to the spread of heat, resulting in a uniform temperature on cooking surface. The cooking surface can be used just like a at stovetop. The heat collection surface on the aluminum chamber has a special structure to enhance radiation absorption. As shown in Fig. 5, the surface has an angle, chosen to be perpendicular to the average sun altitude angle during peak hours of the day. A rectangular array of small bores was fabricated at the focal area. These bores, acting like black holes, increase the surface area exposed to incoming light. Light enters the holes is absorbed and reected multiple times and is eventually completely absorbed. This entire collection area is also painted black to minimize reection. Since the proof of concept is the main task of this work, detailed properties of the light absorption and reection in the focal area remains to be measured in the future. The aluminum chamber is contained in a thermal insulating box with mineral wool lling. An insulating top cover can be put on outdoor stovetop to minimize heat losses, if it is not used and when hot oil is pumped to indoor stove. 2.3. Heat transfer uid loop The heat transfer uid (mineral oil) loop was designed to transport the heat from the heat collection aluminum chamber to a secondary, indoor surface. The mineral oil is rstly heated in the aluminum chamber, and then is pumped through insulated pipe to the indoor surface for heat exchange; after that, is circulated back to the aluminum chamber. In case of only cooking on outdoor stovetop, the mineral oil loop serves no function and remains unused. The mineral oil (Xceltherm 600 from Radco Industries Inc.) has high heat capacity and thermal conductivity and is stable at temperatures up to 310  C. A high-temperature pump (Haight Pumps), which can tolerate a temperature up to 327  C, was used for the oil circulation at oil ow rate less than 6.3 105 m3/s. For the current solar stove system, only 50e80 WDC power was used to operate the pump. It can be driven by power supply from a solar panel. When the mineral oil is heated up, it will expand in volume within the loop. To allow the free expansion of oil, the change in volume can be displaced with an expansion tank near the top of the loop, as shown in Fig. 6. The expansion tank also allows air to escape during the oil lling process. As shown in Fig. 6, a simulated indoor cooking stove is actually installed on the outdoor stove tabletop. The piping, with a length of only 1.8 m between the outdoor stove and the indoor stove was connected in the system, simply to demonstrate the concept of circulating hot mineral oil from outdoor to indoor. 2.4. Safety features Concentrated sunlight can be a safety hazard, causing bodily harm, in any application, especially when users are close to the

beams. In the current design of the system, a curtain/shield can be attached around the Fresnel lens perimeter to completely enclose the concentrated light and protect people from accessing and seeing the focal point in any angle from front of the stove. As seen in Figs. 5 and 6, a light shield was also designed to separate the user of the stove from the heat collection area. The light shield also protects users of the stove from exposing to any reection light. A shelter can be attached to the tabletop of the stove so that the user/ chef is protected from regular sun burning. In this way, the stove can be much safer than all traditional types of solar cookers. 3. Test results of the prototype solar stove The objective of the tests to the solar stove is to make clear three important concerns, that are: 1) whether the solar stove can work properly in a safe and convenient way, as expected, to track sunlight, and also the outdoor stovetop can reach a sufciently high temperature for cooking on a normal sunny day; 2) whether the indoor stovetop can get sufciently high temperatures for cooking/ heating so that the proof of concept of indoor cooking using solar thermal energy can be of success; 3) what is the energy efciency of the outdoor solar stove based on quantitative measurement and analysis, which will guide the future work of whether more thermal insulation protection to the aluminum chambers and piping is needed. 3.1. Temperature measurement and cooking on the solar stoves Temperatures of the outdoor stovetop, the mineral oil inside the aluminum chamber, as well as the indoor stovetop were measured (using thermocouples and a data acquisition system made by National Instrument Corp. USA) in a sunny and windless noon time on a day in April, 2009, at Tucson, Arizona, USA. Fig. 7 shows temperatures of the solar stove in starting-up and operation.

Fig. 6. Close view of the solar stove tabletop.

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Test Results on April 9, 2009, Midday, Sunny and Calm, at Tucson, Arizona, USA

350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 0 40 80 120 Time (min.) 160 200 240 280
Mineral oil in chamber Outdoor stovetop Indoor stovetop

Outdoor stovetop boiling/frying. Outdoor stovetop covered; indoor stovetop boiling/frying.

Outdoor stovetop covered, heated up.

Fig. 7. Temperature variation in a full operation.

would quickly bounce back to be as high as that of the temperature of the outdoor stovetop, which can be observed in Fig. 7. The research team was able to boil water to cook broccoli and also to pan-fry potatoes on the outdoor surface as shown in Fig. 8 (a). The indoor stovetop surface temperature could reach 153  C, which was hot enough to cook hot dogs to a safe internal temperature of 77  C, as shown in Fig. 8(b). To keep the concentrated sunlight beam focused within the required area, both azimuth and altitude tracking need to be adjusted every 5e10 min. Since the tracking system is easy to control, single person operation of both cooking and manually sun tracking can be conveniently handled. From the temperature test and demonstration of food cooking and frying, the prototype stove has successfully proved the design concept. The solar stove is safe, easy and convenient to operate. However, to further advance the technology, automatic sun tracking is to be considered in the near future. 3.2. Measurement of the solar stove energy efciency There are three major factors to consider when the energy loss and energy efciency of the solar stove is concerned. The rst is the solar transmission of the Fresnel lens. The solar transmission of a PMMA Fresnel lens was reported to be 0.92 [11]. The second factor is the energy loss due to the reection of concentrated light at the absorption surface. Although the absorption surface is designed with pores for effective trapping of the concentrated sunlight, a signicant reection was still visible. The third factor that affects the energy efciency is the heat loss due to insufcient thermal protection on the outdoor stovetop, and the piping and indoor stovetop if hot mineral oil is circulated. The energy efciency of the outdoor stovetop was obtained from measurement of the temperature rising rate of the outdoor stove materials and their mass in the current study. Since the energy efciency of the indoor stovetop varies with the length of the piping and mineral oil circulation system and is strongly depend on the thermal protection measures, it will not be discussed here. In order to evaluate the energy efciency of the outdoor stovetop system, the temperatures of the aluminum chamber and mineral oil

During the pre-heating stage, the outdoor solar stovetop is covered by a thermal insulation plate. The temperatures of the stovetop surface rose from environmental temperature to above 150  C in 15 min. In about 50 min from the start, the stovetop surface temperature reached 250  C, which was sufcient for even deep frying of any food. After the outdoor stovetop temperature reached 300  C, at which the mineral oil inside the aluminum chamber can reach its boiling point, a load had to be put on top of the stovetop so that the mineral oil inside the chamber did not boil and break down. It is assumed that the outdoor surface temperature could go even higher if not restricted by the maximum allowable temperature of the mineral oil. When the stovetop was loaded with cooking pan to boil water and fry potato strips, which lasted to until the point of 140 min, the stovetop temperature was around 260  C. After that the circulation of mineral oil through the loop connecting outdoor stove and indoor stove was initiated to test the indoor heating performance. The indoor surface temperature reached 150  C. During the circulation, the temperature of the mineral oil is the same as that of the indoor surface temperature. If the circulation of the mineral oil is shut down, the mineral oil temperature in the aluminum chamber

Temperature ( C)

Fig. 8. Operation of solar stove. (a) Potato frying on outdoor stovetop; (b) Hot dogs cooked on indoor stovetop.

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350

1 Stove energy thermal effieincy

Temperature rising during heating up (all stovetops were covered)

300 Temperature ( C) 250 200

0.8 0.6

Energy to lens=804.2 (W) Energy after lens= 739.9 (W)

Stove temperature

150 100 50 0 0 20 40 60 Time (min.)

Data-fitted curve Poly. (Stove temperature)

0.4 0.2 From focused light to heat From light before lens to heat

0 0 50 100 150 200 250 300

80

100

Temperature (oC)
Fig. 10. Energy efciency tested using the stove temperature increasing rate during zero-load heat-up.

Fig. 9. Solar stove temperature increase during zero-load heat-up.

during a heat-up of the outdoor stovetop was measured and recorded together with time elapse. The mass of the aluminum chamber and the mineral oil inside the chamber was measured before the heat-up test. The heat rate going into the stovetop during the heat-up is calculated from the equation

dT dT _ Q moil Coil oil mAl CAl Al dt dt

(1)

It has been found that the temperatures of the mineral oil and the chamber were very close, as shown in Fig. 7, due to the very good thermal conductivity of aluminum and mineral oil, as well as the natural convection heat transfer inside the chamber. Therefore the above equation may be simplied as:

dTstove _ Q moil Coil mAl CAl dt

The energy efciency of the stove is then dened as:

(2)

h _ Q solar

_ Q

(3)

Fig. 9 shows the average temperature of the outdoor stovetop recorded against the time elapsed from the beginning of the test. The stovetop was covered to minimize the heat loss during the test. A data-t for the stove temperature against time was applied so that a polynomial equation of temperature against time was found, from which the temperature variation rate dTstove/dt can be estimated. Heat capacities of the mineral oil and aluminum, as well as their mass are listed in Table 1. The solar insolation ux, measured from

Table 1 Parameters and properties of mineral oil and the aluminum chamber. Mass (kg) Mineral oil in the chamber Aluminum of the chamber 1.37 6.01 Heat capacity [12,13] [J/(kg  C)] Eq. (4) Eq. (5) (4)

Coil 2:30638458 104 $T 2 3:48630190$T 1:92250676 103 CAl 1:12829135 103 $T 2 8:57123838 101 $T 8:68656109 102

a solar meter (Daystar DS-05A, Daystar Inc.) during the test period, was 808 W/m2. The effective lens surface area is 0.995 m2. This gives the estimation that the solar energy to the Fresnel lens was 804.2 W. Considering the solar transmission of the Fresnel, there is a net heat rate of 739.86 W after the Fresnel lens to focus on the focal area, which is on the aluminum chamber. Energy loss on the focal surface occurs due to the reection of the focused light, heat radiation from the surface, as well as natural convection from the surface. Heat loss from the aluminum chamber also occurs due to wherever a thermal insulation is weak. Fig. 10 shows the results of energy efciency determined using Eqs. (2)e(5) for outdoor stovetop only. The energy efciency of from light before lens to heat means that the sunlight irradiation _ Q solar 804:2 W to the Fresnel lens is considered as the total energy input. This efciency is also called overall efciency. The energy efciency of from focused light to heat is used to represent the situation that the energy after the Fresnel lens _ Q solar 739:86 W is considered as the total energy input. The following takes the energy efciency of from light before lens to heat for discussion. When stovetop temperatures are below 100  C the overall energy efciency is in between 60% and 83%. When stove temperature closes to 300  C the energy efciency drops to only 37%. Obviously the energy efciency of the stove is a function of the temperature of the stovetop. The energy efciency decreases with the increase of the temperature because when the temperature of the stovetop increases, the heat loss to surroundings increases. If the outdoor stovetop is used for cooking and frying, the stove temperature could be lowered to around 255  C, the energy efciency can be as high as 40%. As seen in Fig. 10 that the overall energy efciency reached 83% when the outdoor stovetop had a temperature of 30  C, which did not cause thermal loss; and thus it is believed that the energy loss due to optical system is 17%. The optical loss includes the lens transmission loss and reection loss at the focal point. As a conclusion, if the heat loss at any high temperature is signicantly reduced, the solar stove energy efciency can reach a maximum as high as 83%. Therefore for further advancement of the solar stove, reduction of the heat loss will be the major issue. 4. Concluding remarks

(5) Note: Eqs. (4) and (5) were obtained from regressions of data in Refs. [12] and [13], respectively. The unit of temperature T is  C. The maximum relative uncertainties of Coil and CAl from Eqs. (4) and (5) compared to original data are less than 0.15% and 1.19%, respectively.

In order to demonstrate the proposed innovative concept of a Fresnel-lens-based solar stove and its application to both outdoor and indoor cooking/heating using solar energy, a prototype model has been developed and tested in this work. On typical sunny days

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in south Arizona USA, the outdoor solar stovetop could reach temperatures as high as 300  C for food boiling and frying. Solar heat collected on the outdoor stovetop could be circulated through a mineral oil loop to an indoor stovetop. The indoor stovetop could reach a temperature of 150  C for cooking application. The overall energy efciency (from sunlight to heat) of the outdoor solar stovetop approached to 83% at low temperatures (below 50  C) and 40% at high temperatures (from 250 to 300  C). The solar stove also demonstrated features of easy of fabrication and low cost, as well as highly safe and convenience of operation. The prototype is a promising beginning of a benecial, innovative solar energy technology. The concept presented in this work could be applied in many ways including: solar cooking for families in suburbs and rural areas, for roadside food cooking and vendor, or residential-scale solar thermal collection and utilization for house heating. Multiple modules could be used to provide large quantity of heat for industrial level cooking and food processing. In concert with a thermal energy storage unit, the system could provide solar heat for nighttime use. On the basis of the current prototype, the following technical improvements are proposed to advance the technology in the future for marketable products. (1) To develop better thermal protection and integration of the heating/cooking surface with the sunlight focal surface. (2) To optimize and enhance the heat transfer in the aluminum chamber. (3) To develop highly absorptive surface for the sunlight focal area. (4) To use larger Fresnel lens in order to improve the total energy input, and at the same time to use a cover to the lens to control the energy input so as to lower the temperature of the stovetop when necessary. (5) To have an automatic sun-tracking system that may be powered by a solar panel. With automatic sun-tracking system, the

solar stove can run without attendance, which is the critical step to the wide application of this technology in industry and living. Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the US Environmental Protection Agency for their generous funding through the P3 program under Grant No. SU-83391401. Their dedication to sustainable technologies greatly inspired all of us. References
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