Utilization of solar energy for cooking during pilgrimage (HAJJ)

Abstract The solar cooking process was investigated with the aim to develop safe, simple, portable and reliable solar cookers for use during the pilgrimage to Mecca. The concepts of insulated and vapor-tight pots were introduced, and were applied to point focus and flat plate cookers. A new flat plate cooker with heat pipes was developed, which requires no tracking, and allows the cooking to be done in the shade or indoors. Likewise, a novel portable cooker (the Mina oven), featuring a vapor-tight pot and an integral collector with reflector was constructed and tested. Experiments indicated that all cookers yielded satisfactory performance, with cooking times of 60–90 min for meat dishes, and operating from about 10.00 to 16.00. The potentiality of adopting these cookers for pilgrimage is high.