Question

What is the principle of solar cookers? Give the limitations and advantages of solar cookers.

Answer 1

A solar cooker is one kind of device which uses the energy of direct sunlight to cook and also heat the food materials. As solar cookers don’t make use of any fuel and also cost nothing to operate, solar cookers help to reduce fuel costs and air pollution.

Complete step-by-step solution:
Solar cookers work based on the principle of harvesting the sunlight. The working principle of a solar cooker comprises three steps such as concentrating sunlight, converting light energy to heat energy, and then trapping heat energy.
The reflector installed on top of the solar cooker may be a mirrored surface with high specular reflection, which is employed to concentrate light from the sun into the tiny cooking area. Specular reflection implies that the incident light is reflected into a single outgoing direction. The mirror employed in the reflector could be a convex mirror of focal length equal to the distance between the mirror and therefore the inside of the cooker. We all know that light rays coming from the sun and also the sun are considered to be at an infinite distance from us. Light rays coming from infinity and being incident on a convex mirror are converged at the focal distance of the mirror. These concentrated and also focused light rays help to raise the temperature of the cooker for cooking purposes. This suggests that the function of the reflector is to focus light energy.

Note: There are various types of solar cookers. Using them has several advantages; using solar energy for cooking reduces the carbon footprint as no carbon-based fuels or current from the electricity grid is employed. Using less fossil fuel reduces the cost spent behind it. It reduces deforestation and also keeps the environment clean. Cooking is often done at temperatures above 290 degrees Celsius with the assistance of the vacuum tube and parabolic solar cookers.