Construction, Modeling and Simulation of Solar Box Cooker using Phase Change Materials (PCMs) for enhanced cooking method in Maiduguri, Nigeria

Maina M. B., Abdulrahim A. T., Muhammad A. B.

Abstract


Thermal energy storage (TES) systems provide several alternatives for efficient energy use and conservation. Phase change materials (PCMs) for TES are materials supplying thermal regulation at particular phase change temperatures by absorbing and emitting the heat of the medium. With abundant solar energy that can be tapped in Maiduguri from North East (NE) of Nigeria in average annual insolation of 755W/m2 with temperature range as high as 38-45oC the development of more efficient, cost effective and clean sources of energy has been an area of much research interest and technological development to fill the growing gap between energy supply and demand. Three phase change materials (PCMs), namely: Paraffin Wax, Palm Oil and Groundnut Oil were used as latent heat storage material in Solar Box Cookers (SBCs) with a single booster mirror for cooking during the day and at off-sunshine hours in Maiduguri Nigeria. ANSYS 19.0 simulation package was used to develop the SBC geometry and carry out numerical simulation while the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) was used to experimentally validate the numerical data. Paraffin Wax SBC F1 and F2 were found to be 0.13 and 0.44, Palm Oil SBC F1 and F2 were found to be 0.12 and 0.38 and Groundnut Oil SBC F1 and F2 were found to be 0.13 and 0.4 respectively qualifying all SBCs to grade ‘A’ based on the BIS evaluation standard. While the energy efficiencies were found to be: for Paraffin Wax SBC as (ɳ) 33%, Palm Oil SBC efficiency (ɳ) was 34% and Groundnut Oil SBC energy efficiency (ɳ) was 32%. The simulated oven temperatures were experimentally validated and were found to agree within 5% error of mean for Paraffin Wax SBC (96oC and 98oC), 7% error of mean for Palm Oil SBC (96oC and 93oC) and 4% error of mean for Groundnut Oil SBC at 94oC and 91oC.


Full Text:

PDF

References


Andersson, B., Andersson, R., HÃ¥kansson, L., Mortensen, M., Sudiyo, R. and van Wachem, B. (2009). Computer Fluid Dynamics for Engineers, 5th Ed., Gothenburg, Sweden

Birds, R.B., Stewart, W.E. and Lightfoot, E.N. (2001). Transport Phenomena, John Wiley & sons, Inc. (2nd Ed.), New York.

Bureau of Indian Standard (2000). Indian Standard 13429. Solar Cooker Box-Type, First Revision. Manak Bharwan, New Delhi.

Domanski, R. El-sabaii, A. A. and Jaworsky, M. (1995), ‘Cooking During Off-sunshine Hours Using PCM as Storage Media’ Energy, vol. 20, no. 7, pp. 607-616.

Garg, H.P., Mullick, S.C., Bhargava, A.K., (1983). Solar thermal energy storage. D. Reidel Publication Co. Holland.

IEA, International Energy Agency, 2010. World Energy Outlook

Kumar, Rakesh and ROSEN, Marc A. (2011). A critical review of photovoltaic–thermal solar collectors for air heating, Applied Energy, 88, (11): 3603-3614.

M.R. Abbas, D.Y. Dasin and A.S. Aliyu (2014) performance of parabolic concentrated solar cooker used for cooking in Bauchi-Nigeria. Journal of Advanced Research Design, 3 (1) Pp: 9-21

Maina M.B., Ngala G.M. and Abdulrahim A.T. (2016). Design, Fabrication and Performance Evaluation of a Solar Brick Oven, International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology, 5(1): 179-182.

Mohamed Ali B.S. (2000), Design and testing of Sudanese solar box cooker, Renewable Energy 21:573–81.

Mohammad, A. (2013). Historical Review of Liquid Desiccant Evaporation Cooling Technology, Energy and Buildings, 67: 22-33.

Musa H, Ngala G.M and Maina M.B. (2016). Investigating the performance of Box type Solar Cooker using Modeling and Simulation Techniques. Faculty of Engineering Seminar Series, 7, pp: 84-90

Nussbaumer, T. (2003), Combustion and Co-combustion of Biomass: fundamentals, Technologies, and primary measures for emission reduction†Energy & Fuels, vol. 17, pp. 1510-1521.

Ngala G.M, Maina M.B and Tela M.B, (2015). Design and Construction of a High Concentration Solar Cooker, International Journal of Research in Mechanical Engineering, 3(1): 01-07.

Saxena A, Varun Pandey SP and Srivastav G. A (2011). Thermodynamic review on solar box type cookers, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 15:3301–18.

Shan, Q., Wang, Y., Li, J., and Gao, C. (2014). Genome Editing in Rice and Wheat Using the CRISPR/Cas System, Nature Protocols, 9(10): 2395–2410.

Sharma S, Buddhi D, Sawhney R and Sharma A . (2000). Design, development and performance evaluation of a latent heat storage unit for evening cooking in a solar cooker. Energy Conversion and Management , 41: 1497–1508.

Yuksel, N., and Avci, A. (2010), The Use of Solar Energy on the Cookers with Latent Heat Storage (in Turkish), Proceedings, 8th National Clean Energy Symposium, Bursa, Turkey, pp. 23-31.

Zhou. G, Yang Y, Wang. X and Zhou S (2009). Numerical analysis of effect of shape-stabilized phase change material plates in a building combined with night ventilation. Applied Energy, 86 (1): 52–59.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.