Table 1.

A table summary of recent reviews on solar cookers.

Author and Year	Title	Focus of study	Results
Lahkar and Samdarshi [44] 2010	A review of the thermal performance parameters of box type solar cookers and identification of their correlations	The aim of the review was to compare the correlations of different performance parameters of solar box cookers.	It was found that none of the evaluated parameters were able to predict heat retention.
Saxena et al. [45] 2011	A thermodynamic review on solar box type cookers	Diverse developments of solar box cookers were reviewed.	Results indicated that solar box cookers were safer to use, save money, and food cooked with solar box cookers was more nutritious.
Panwar et al. [46] 2012	State of the art of solar cooking: An overview	A standard of testing solar cookers and thermal properties (such as energy and exergy) analyses were performed.	It was found out that utilizing solar cookers reduced carbon dioxide emissions.
Farooqui [47] 2014	A review of vacuum tube based solar cookers with the experimental determination of energy and exergy efficiencies of a single vacuum tube based prototype	A review of the progress made with the development of vacuum tube-based solar cookers was presented. Also, energy and exergy analyses of a vacuum tube-based solar cooker were conducted.	The energy efficiency and exergy efficiency of the vacuum tube solar cooker were found to be 20–30%, and 4–6%, respectively.
Yettou et al. [48] 2014	Solar cooker realizations in actual use: An overview	The review focused on the recent advances in the development of solar cooker technologies.	It found that the solar cooking technology has a potential to reduce the rate of energy consumption in the near future.
Harmim et al. [49] 2014	Solar cooking development in Algerian Sahara: Towards socially suitable solar cookers.	The review focused on solar cooking in the Algerian Sahara environment.	It was found that the building an integrated solar cooker was easy to construct, and it was efficient even during the winter season.
Iessa et al. [50] 2017	Unverified assumptions, overlooking of local needs and pro-solution biases in the solar cooking literature	A critical review was studied for solar cooking in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to reduce deforestation, improve health and empower women.	The review showed that solar cooking and its impact are not systematically tested, and may not be strong as claimed.
Herez et al. [24] 2018	Review on solar cooker systems: Economic and environmental study for different Lebanese scenarios	The study focused on previous work done on the economic and environmental impact of solar cookers in Lebanon using different locations and economic backgrounds.	There was a reduction in the emission of carbon dioxide from homes, hotels and restaurants. On the economic aspect, it was found that the dependency on the solar cooker decreased the payback.
Hage et al. [51] 2018	An investigation on solar drying: A review with economic and environmental assessment.	The aim of the study was to determine the role of main components of solar dryers, economic and environmental assessments and parameters affecting them.	When a certain percentage of time was utilized monthly, about $ 780 was saved monthly.
Indora and Kandpal [52] 2018	Institutional cooking with solar energy: A review.	The aim of the study was to evaluate institutional solar cooking using parabolic dishes, scheffler dishes and the ARUN solar cooker.	The awareness of institutional solar cooking must be spread to potential users.
Elsheikh et al. [53] 2019	Modeling of solar energy systems using artificial neural networks: A comprehensive review.	Artificial neural networks models were deployed to predict thermal parameters of solar systems such as solar cookers, solar dryers, etc.	Deploying artificial neural networks may save time and reduce costs.
Omara et al. [38] 2020	Improving solar cookers performance using phase change materials: A comprehensive review.	The aim of this review was to study the feasibility of improving solar cookers when considering geometrical influence and different phase change materials.	Future work must include economic and environmental aspects using solid to liquid PCMs.
Arunachala and Kundapur [54] 2020	Cost-effective solar cookers: A global review.	An investigation of cost-effective solar box cookers and other solar cookers was conducted on a global scale.	Thorough research must be conducted to improve the efficiency of low cost solar box cookers.
Devan et al. [55] 2020	A comprehensive review on solar cookers with a sun tracking system.	An evaluation on solar cooking technology was done.	Installing a tracking system on parabolic dishes enhanced the performance of the solar cooker.
Khatri et al. [5] 2021	Advances in the development of solar cookers for sustainable development: A comprehensive review.	The research focused on the effect of how the main components and heat transfer characteristics affect the overall efficiency.	Social and economic aspects can be improved with better policy implementations.
Gokul et al. [56] 2021	A comprehensive review on solar cooker tracking techniques for performance enhancement	This review discussed tracking systems of solar cookers.	Thermal performance of the solar cookers improved when combined with a tracking system.