In-Field Emission Measurements from Biogas and Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) Stoves
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Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801 USA
2
Mountain Air Engineering, Cottage Grove, OR 97424, USA
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Schatz Energy Research Center, Arcata, CA 95521, USA
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Independent Researcher, Kathmandu 44600, Nepal
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Center for Rural Technology, Lalitpur 44600, Nepal
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Anthropology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801 USA
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Berkeley School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
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Society for Legal & Environmental Analysis and Development Research (LEADERS Nepal), Kathmandu 44600, Nepal
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Atmosphere 2019, 10(12), 729; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10120729
Received: 26 September 2019 / Revised: 10 November 2019 / Accepted: 13 November 2019 / Published: 21 November 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Real World Air Pollutant Emissions from Combustion Sources)
Household air pollution from solid fuel cooking causes millions of deaths each year and contributes to climate change. These emissions can be reduced if households transition to cleaner cooking fuels such as LPG or biogas, yet emission measurements during actual use are limited. Six LPG and 57 biogas cooking event emissions were measured during typical cooking practices in Nepal. Emission factors are reported for elemental carbon (EC), organic carbon (OC), particulate matter (PM2.5), and carbon monoxide (CO) and compared to measurements from wood stoves in the same households. Biogas cooking emission factors were 7.4 ± 10.9 mg MJ−1 for PM2.5 and 0.2 ± 0.3 mg MJ−1 for EC on a fuel energy basis, and were not significantly different from LPG stoves (9.5 ± 6.8 mg MJ−1 for PM2.5 and 0.3 ± 0.3 mg MJ−1 for EC, p > 0.05). Wood stoves emitted 50 times more PM2.5 than biogas on a fuel energy basis and 230 times more EC. EC emissions were about 3% of total particle emissions from biogas and LPG stoves. Most PM2.5 emissions from gas stoves were attributed to food frying and stove ignition (90%), not the gas fuel (10%), implying that there is a limit to emission reductions that can be achieved with improved fuels.
Keywords:
cookstove; black carbon; emissions; LPG; biogas
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Weyant, C.L.; Thompson, R.; Lam, N.L.; Upadhyay, B.; Shrestha, P.; Maharjan, S.; Rai, K.; Adhikari, C.; Fox, M.C.; Pokhrel, A. In-Field Emission Measurements from Biogas and Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) Stoves. Atmosphere 2019, 10, 729.
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