Question

Name a device used to convert solar energy into heat.

Answer 1

Hint: The solar energy cannot be directly converted into heat without the use of a device to convert it. We know that the black surface absorbs sunlight more efficiently. If we place the utensil with food on such black surface and evacuate it with a glass and wooden box, we can cook the food inside the utensil.

Complete answer:
We know sunlight is the vast source of energy and can be used to run many electrical devices and appliances used in the kitchen. The process involves converting solar energy into useful mechanical energy.
The device used to convert solar energy into heat is a solar cooker. The most commonly used solar cooker is the box-type solar cooker consisting of a wooden box, plane mirror as reflector, glass sheet cover, inner metal painted box, and thermocol. We can see the reflector reflect the sunlight into the metal box. Since the metal box is painted at the inner surface, all sunlight reflects at the inner surface for a number of times. Thus, it increases the efficiency of the solar cooker.
We know that the bottom surface of the solar cooker is painted as black. Therefore, the sunlight gets absorbed at the bottom surface. We can place the food that we want to cook in the utensil and place it on the black surface. We can see the utensil absorbs heat from the black surface. We can get \[100^\circ {\text{C}}\] temperature of the black surface with this arrangement.

Note:
There are many types of solar cookers out of which we have discussed the working of box-type solar cookers. Students might answer this question as a photovoltaic cell, but remember, the photovoltaic cell converts solar energy into electric energy. The solar bulbs run on photovoltaic cells.