Sustainable food cooking utilizing an improved solar box cooker integrated with novel thermal storage material

Solar energy technology is one of the most widely used clean technologies among renewable energy technologies. It is used for cooking, heating, cooling, distillation, drying, and power generation worldwide. This work focuses on improving the existing design of the box-type solar cooker by incorporating a novel sensible heat storage material for the first time. This box solar cooker with volcanic rock storage (BSC-VRS) is used to study its thermal performance parameter (TPP)-based evaluation for boiling-type cooking. The heat-storing material is in granular form and is uniformly filled beneath the absorber tray, including the side walls. The Cooker-Opto-thermal-ratio (COR), as a TPP, provides a holistic techno-economic analysis of the cooker. The experimental results show that the average COR for BSC-VRS is 0.127 ± 0.0070 (m²·°C)/W, with a standard deviation percentage of 5.54%, and the thermal efficiency varies between 26.1 and 27.2%. The levelized cost of a solar meal is 0.0186 $/meal. The cooker can cook almost all boiling-type edibles during full and reduced sunshine hours , as well as keep the cooked lunch warm up to dinner time. Therefore, the design is adaptable for most people and offers significant financial and environmental benefits. This work fully supports the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for clean energy technology.