Barbecue is very amazing and old method of cooking food when the people collaborate to enjoy the day outdoors. Barbecue and grilling are very close but yet different method of cooking with almost same apparatus. Grilling is generally done “hot and fast” over direct heat from low-smoke fuels on the other hand barbecuing is usually done “low and slow” over indirect heat from high-smoke fuels. So the main problem of these methods is pollutants which they emit during cooking into the air that are harmful for the environment. So these are not environment friendly.
But change has been made by David Wilson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came up with a grill that eliminates the use of those important fuels. The Wilson Solar Grills serves both for cooking and heating food, and can also be used as a heater. It only uses solar energy.
Solar Grill Stores Latent Heat for 25-Hour Cook Time at 450F, this is really amazing. It has equipped with a battery of lithium nitrate, which can store the solar energy. Solar energy stored in one day can be used easily next day outdoors. This method is also very important for the communities located in rural and remote areas.
French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel’s Fresnel lens is making the design enables for the fabrication of wide aperture lenses and short focal distance. Actually Fresnel lenses are much thinner, lighter and allow more light to pass through, eliminating the use of conventional lenses. This method is also very useful in the sense it has zero CO2 emission and consumption.
Professor Wilson is focused on developing strategies to manufacture the device which can be use on large scale and could be able to facilitate their distribution to developing countries.
Images Courtesy: Derek Ham
