I am building a solar cooker oven. Is common table salt a good insulator for use in the outside walls?

Question

I am building a solar cooker oven. Is common table salt a good insulator for use in the outside walls?

Answer 1

Try fiberglass or mineral wool.

Answer 2

no, what gave you that idea. Pick something that can take the heat, no styrofoam. Fiberglas would be good.

Answer 3

No,

Salt is cheap, won’t burn, is able to store heat, easy to deform and shape, but it is not stable if wet, it can form hazardous chemical compounds and it can melt away.  Sand however has all those advantages and none of those disadvantages.

The best way to make a solar oven is to use a Fresnel lens; a parabolic shaped reflector that concentrates heat at the focal point for cooking.  These designs don’t contain a heat trap material or need one.

I recommend a brick/concrete case filled with sand and a Fresnel lens oven buried in the sand.  You can depress it and slide it to focus it at the optimum angle.

A standard oven uses a massive heat retention block to store the heat, but the standard solar oven doesn’t do that.

Here are some plans:

http://eduhosting.org/classes/windgens/s...

http://www.knowledgehound.com/topics/sol...

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Coo...

http://solarcooking.org/plans/

http://www.permapak.net/pizzaboxoven.htm

http://www.allfreecrafts.com/nature/sola...

http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Minim...

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fa...

http://www.researchbuzz.org/2006/01/arch...

http://www.epsea.org/cook.html

http://simmonsnaturals.blogspot.com/2008...

Answer 4

Salt can be disolve with rain or wet. Not good at all. Using fine sand is the best .

Answer 5

How about using an air gap?

Answer 6

Try 2" thick styrofoam with black surface of some kind on the inside.