solar-powered-grill-eliminates-the-use-of-air-polluting-fuel

Barbecue is not only a lot of people’s favorite food, it’s a popular pastime for friends to get together and enjoy the day outdoors. Unfortunately though, it’s not the most environmentally friendly activity due to the fact that burning coal and wood emit considerable amounts of pollutants into the air that are harmful to the environment. But that could be about to change as David Wilson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came up with a grill that eliminates the use of firewood, coal, gas or mains electrical power to operate. The Wilson Solar Grills serves both for grilling, cooking or heating food, but can also be used as a heater. All of which use only solar energy.

The technology used in the device, which can reach 230° Celsius, is exquisite. It comes equipped with a battery based on lithium nitrate, which can store the solar energy of about 25 hours of continuous use. This means that the energy stored in a single day out in the sun can be used throughout the night and the next day too This favours the enjoyable activity of outdoor cooking in large cities and especially in meeting the needs of the communities located in rural and remote areas.

The capacity and technological refinement of the grill doesn’t stop there. By using Fresnel lens, originally created for use in seaside lighthouses by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, the design enables the fabrication of wide aperture lenses and short focal distance, without the weight and material volume of conventional lens. This means that compared to the conventional ones, Fresnel lenses are much thinner, lighter and allow more light to pass through.

This versatile device not only serves as a stove, grill and heater, but it also has zero CO2 emissions and zero consumption and waste of any other type of energy source making use only of the sustainable and free sunlight!

Now, the challenge of a group of MIT student under the guidance of Professor Wilson is focused on developing strategies to manufacture the device in large scale and to facilitate their distribution to developing countries and, why not, also within the USA and other developed nations.

Via Treehugger

Images © Derek Ham

- See more at: http://interestingengineering.com/solar-powered-grill-eliminates-the-use-of-air-polluting-fuel/#sthash.4SaV4P2O.dpuf