Nonimaging Optics and Constructal Design Towards Optimal Solar Cookers

Abstract

According to the WHO nowadays all over the world millions of people get sick and die each year from inhaling the fumes produced by the combustion of wood and other fuels for cooking, causing much more deaths than the those due to COVID-19! These deaths and illnesses can be significantly reduced by using very efficient, reliable, safe and economical solar cookers with which any type of food could be cooked most of the days of the year. Even thought there are today lots of succesfull designs of solar cookers, we still need such optimised designs that could operate even in frankly cloudy days;the solar cookers presented here meet these strict requirements. Globally, cooking food involves a significant and unavoidable consumption of energy cause more than 7.8 billion people must eat at least three times a day and this cooking is done mostly by burning fossil fuels or firewood, generating a large amount of toxic and greenhouse gases and particles that are very harmful to health and the environment. The massive use of solar cookers would have great benefits, but to guarantee their use for at least 85% of the days of each year it is necessary to have very high-performance solar cookers, keeping ease use and reasonably low manufacturing costs. The use of Nonimaging Optics and the Constructal Design have made possible to create solar cookers with which them is possible to cook any food on almost any day of the year. Details of their design and some operational results are sumarised here. © 2021. The Authors.