Design, realization, and tests of a portable solar box cooker coupled with an erythritol-based PCM thermal energy storage

Solar radiation is a variable energy source and the mismatch between the availability of such source and the domestic energy demand is a paramount challenge to deal with. For this reason, in this work a 4.08 concentration ratio portable solar box cooker coupled with a thermal energy storage (TES) based on a phase change material (PCM) was characterized through outdoor experimental tests. The TES is a double-wall stainless steel vessel, with the annular volume filled with 2.5 kg of erythritol. The portable solar box cooker was tested under 4 different experimental conditions: without load, with water, with silicone oil, and with silicone oil inserted in the erythritol-based TES. The load tests were divided into a heating and a cooling phase, in order to evaluate the cooker performance in absence of solar radiation. Results showed that equipping the portable solar box cooker with the erythritol-based TES allowed to extend the average load cooling time, in the range 125–100 °C, of around 351.16%.