Development and Performance Evaluation of a dual operation Passive Solar Cooking and Drying System with PCM heat storage

This paper presents system design analysis and performance evaluation of a dual operated passive solar cooking and drying system for an arid and semi arid regions. The system has the ability to utilise a range of thermal storage materials including phase change material (PCM) and other locally available oils as a medium for energy storage in order to extend its operational period to low solar insolation periods and night time. The system has been tested and evaluated in accordance to the two figures of merits viz; stagnation temperature test (F1) and water boiling test (F2) for both cooking and drying applications. The system was further tested using different thermal storage materials including water, vegetable oil, recycled engine oil and selected PCM materials for cooking operating temperatures. The results have shown that, the system could replace most of the current conventional cooking and drying systems in the arid and semiarid climates, and have ability to provide heat retention for up to 5 hours using 4 litres recycled vegetable and engine oils. The heat retention period could practically be further extended when PCM materials are used as a heat storage medium owe to its latent heat storage capability