Efficacy of Stainless Steel as Cooking Utensil Material for Solar Cooking

The study was undertaken with an objective to test the suitability of stainless steel utensil. Market survey of shopkeepers and consumers indicated a very high acceptance of stainless steel over aluminum. Experimental research design was used to test the efficacy of stainless steel. The data for testing the efficacy of stainless steel was collected after pre-testing and standardizing certain parameters viz. rice water proportion for cooking, thermal performance test under stagnant temperature condition and procedure to be followed for experimental work. Experiments on cooking time tested efficacy of stainless steel and compared stainless steel with traditionally used aluminum container in solar cooking. Further the efficacy of stainless steel containers was enhanced by comparing them with traditional black finish – black board paint. The results of the study indicate that solar cooking can be done in stainless steel container with some extra time. Stainless steel took merely 4-17 minutes extra in comparison to aluminum.Key Words: RiceAluminumConsumersShopkeepers

Metallurgy · Waste management · Engineering · Environmental Science · Materials Science · Solar Thermal and Photovoltaic Systems · Textile materials and evaluations