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Ph.D.
(Engineering & Technology)
EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF SCHEFFLER REFLECTOR WITH
THERMAL STORAGE MEDIA FOR DOMESTIC COOKING APPLICATION

Ph.D. Scholar : Patel Romilkumar Mahendrabhai
Research Supervisor : Prof. (Dr.) Vikramkumar B. Patel

Regi. No.: 18276311003
Abstract :
The energy crisis and environmental pollution are serious problems for the world's
ecology. The energy requirements are proportionally increasing with an increase in the
population. Out of the total primary energy consumption, 36% of the energy is consumed
in cooking. In India, most households in rural areas use various energy sources for
cooking, such as dung cakes, agricultural residues, fuel wood, charcoal, kerosene, LPG,
etc. These energy resources are limited in nature, and their use results in deforestation,
land degradation, and environmental pollution. So, there is a need to utilize abundant and
eco-friendly energy sources, such as solar energy, for cooking purposes.
Solar energy utilization for thermal applications, like cooking, heating, and drying, was
well recognized in tropical and semitropical regions. The different types of solar cookers
developed for cooking were (a) concentrator type, (b) box type, and (c) indirect type. Solar
cookers were more popular due to their simplicity of handling and operation. The use of a
solar cooker is limited because cooking food is impossible due to frequent clouds during
the day or evening. In the day or the evening, if solar energy storage is provided in a solar
cooker, then there is a possibility of cooking the food during the clouds or in the evening,
and the storage would increase the utility and reliability of the solar cookers. Therefore, a
thermal energy storage system is required and considered a problem in the present
research work. Researchers have worked on sensible and latent heat storage materials,
and very few of them used a combination of latent and sensible heat storage materials.
For thermal energy storage in a cooking pot, one of the storage materials was filled in the
inner pot and another was filled in the outer pot of the cooking pot. Twenty combinations
were prepared from sand, iron pieces, and pebbles (as sensible heat storage materials)
and acetamide and stearic acid (as latent heat storage materials) for the experimentation
purpose. During selected hours of experiments, the Scheffler unit reflected the rays to
heat the cooking pot, which was filled with thermal energy storage materials too. During
the evening, the cooking pot transferred heat to an insulator box and loaded it to cook the
food (rice) for four members of the family.

In the present research work, design and develop a 2 m2 area of Scheffler reflector,
demonstrate the investigation of the thermal performance of sensible heat storage
material (in pairs) and latent heat storage material (in pairs), and combine heat storage
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