By Nastaran Shishegar

Technograph writer

A group of researchers at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment (iSEE) at the University are working to develop a revolutionary way to prepare food: through the use of a solar-powered stove, which would harness solar thermal energy and release it in the cooking process, effectively creating zero emissions.

This technology contributes to sustainability and climate change efforts, as well as efforts to create viable, healthy cooking solutions for impoverished people worldwide.

The research team, which includes four faculty members, three Ph.D. students, one master’s student, four undergraduate students and two high school students, is working to create the stove, which will store solar energy in portable vessels at high temperatures that will consequently eliminate the need for fire or fuel, which can have dangerous implications for personal health and the environment.

The team conducts research to find out how energy-impoverished people around the world cook, and studies their energy consumption behavior. The members strive to develop methods to gain, accumulate and recover solar thermal energy.

“The earth receives more solar energy every hour than civilization uses in an entire year,” said Bruce Elliott-Litchfield, professor of agricultural and biological engineering and lead investigator of the research project, in an email. “And so we want to use some of that free, clean energy,”

The device is viable virtually worldwide, and can be tailored to accommodate various levels of solar energy in regions around the globe.

Litchfield said people might think that solar cookers are slow, do not provide enough heat or cannot cook at night, and therefore are impractical and ineffective.

“But we are developing systems to concentrate, collect, store and then recover solar thermal energy at high temperatures — near flame temperatures, and that’s key for replacing fire cooking,” he said.

Litchfield said the device’s ability to store solar heat is key to allowing someone to cook later in the evening, or even the next day or several days later in another location. Previous attempts to develop solar cooking devices were not successful because the energy was not readily available when needed or the heat was not sufficient.

Environmentally, the solar stove is a more viable option than fuel or fire-burning alternatives. Litchfield said warming elements such as carbon dioxide, black carbon and ozone precursors are produced in the cooking process. Also, cooking with fire not only wastes energy, but it also creates unsafe conditions which could result in burns and destructive fires.

‘’Our customers/beneficiaries include energy-impoverished people in the developing world, with a particular emphasis on women and children tasked with fuel collection and cooking,” Litchfield said. ‘’By using reflective parabolic dishes and custom vessels to collect, store, and recover solar thermal energy, we avert the problems and provide energy for cooking and other household-scale applications,” Litchfield added.

Although individual fires might not make a large impact, the collective effects are significant and create negative impacts on the environment and public health.

Cooking, heating space and drying food with the help of stored solar energy could decrease the negative health impacts caused by burning solid fuels.

On a daily basis, Litchfield said, three billion people worldwide cook using solid fuels such as wood and animal dung.

“Hence, the air pollution which is generated by this matter causes the premature death of over 4 million people each year,” he said. “This also is responsible for 20% of global climate forcing.”

The technology could also have economic implications.

‘’We expect that collecting and distributing stored solar energy could empower women entrepreneurs and provide meaningful jobs,” Litchfield said. “It will free women and children from the burden of collecting firewood and other fuels, as many spend several hours a day on this task. This will allow them to engage in furthering their education and finding employment outside the home.”

The device would cost around $100, making it affordable for most people around the world.

There is also a potential business aspect to this device, Litchfield said. Someone could run a business by leasing the device to others. As the stove collects solar energy during a day, it would be fully charged, and others could rent these charged buckets. Sun Buckets,http://researchpark.illinois.edu/directory/sun-buckets located at Research Park in Champaign, deals with the business side of this research project.

The researchers have been working on this project for several years. Many prototypes have been produced and tested in order to find any potential problems with the device. If it turns out to be commercially successful, more research will be done and more designs will be created to improve and extend the application.

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