A sixth former at Lord Wandsworth College in Long Sutton has designed a solar cooker to boil water and prevent cholera.

Thomas Hu, aged 17, and a group of friends created it after watching news of a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe.

This potentially lethal diarrheal infection is caused by consuming food or water contaminated with vibrio cholerae bacteria.

Thomas said: “We decided to make a product that could boil water easily.

“Firewood is an unsustainable energy resource, and because of deforestation people in Zimbabwe often have to travel long distances to access it. Their electrical supply is unreliable and expensive, so we came up with the idea of designing a solar cooker.”

They showcased their prototypes to villagers in Zimbabwe, leaving them with the models and the blueprint.

The cooker resembles an inverted umbrella and concentrates light via its mirrored surface on to a single focal point. This can heat water to boiling point within 15 minutes and costs £11 to make.

The group has since created a more efficient device using an aluminium frame and glass fibre which they also demonstrated in Zimbabwe.

Thomas said: “We arranged for 100 solar cookers to be transported there. We donated 25 of them to the National Council of Disabled Persons of Zimbabwe and 25 to three hospitals and two schools.

“The remaining 50 will support a ‘business to philanthropy’ framework, where local partners and government officials will work together to retail the cookers locally, using the income to sustain the programme in the longer term.

“We have registered a utility patent for our designs, but we don’t want to make money from it. To me, this is about engineering and designing a solution to a problem. Engineering relates to real life and can help people. It can heal and provide better living conditions for those who also have big dreams.”