Search Results (46)

Approximately one-third of the global population cooks over open fires in the home, which are responsible for millions of deaths per year globally. The aim of this longitudinal cohort study was to develop, implement, and evaluate an intervention to improve the cooking behaviors of women in a rural Nicaraguan community. The study employed the Community Health Action Model for Participatory Behavior Change (CHAMP-BC) framework to develop a novel approach to improving cooking behaviors and reducing symptoms associated with household air pollution. The study was conducted from October 2007 to March 2018. Community health needs assessments and community forums were conducted. Readiness to change surveys were administered. Pre- and post-test cookstove implementation surveys were conducted. One hundred sixty-seven primary cooks, primarily women (99%), consented to participate in the improved cookstove program and were followed from baseline for up to seven years post-intervention. There were significant improvements in cough (p < 0.0001), chest illness (p < 0.0001), shortness of breath (p < 0.0001), headaches (p < 0.0001), and eye irritation (p < 0.0001). The novel CHAMP-BC framework enhanced the research approach by empowering women to change their cooking behaviors while providing them with the autonomy and agency necessary for decision-making regarding evidence-based methods to improve their health. Full article

Biomass is commonly used for cooking in developing countries, but traditional cookstoves emit pollutants (CO, NO_x, PM), which harm indoor air quality. Improvements and solutions are essential for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7). This study assesses the impact of the combustion chamber design, the combustion-air/gasification-air ratio (CA/GA = 2.8, 3.0, and 3.2), and the start type of water boiling test (WBT) protocol (cold and hot starts) on the chemical and morphological characteristics of the total suspended particulate matter (TSPM) emitted from a biomass gasification-based cookstove using densified biomass as feedstock. TSPM was characterized using Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Raman Spectroscopy, and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to evaluate their chemical composition and morphological features under the above operational conditions. Under the modified WBT protocol, the cookstove achieved CO levels ranging from 1.52 to 2.13 g/MJ_d, and efficiency between 26.56% and 27.81%. TSPM emissions ranged between ~74 and 122.70 mg/MJ_d. The chemical characteristics of TSPM surface functional groups weren’t affected by the start condition, except for decreased intensities as CA/GA increased, promoting oxidation and removal as CO/CO₂. While cold start produced TSPM with higher structural order at higher CA/GA levels, no significant differences were observed among samples from both start conditions at CA/GA ≥ 3.0, indicating chemical and structural similarity. Morphology and particle size were mainly unaffected, with only slight increases in particle size during hot start due to higher biomass-to-air ratios. Full article

This work aims to address the knowledge gap in the thermal efficiency performance of a locally made cookstove in Mali. Despite the fact that the thermal efficiency of cookstoves is a crucial aspect of cooking, the performance of commercially produced cookstoves in Mali has not been thoroughly studied. In this context, the thermal efficiency of a single-mouth biomass stove has been investigated using a theoretical and experimental approach. First, the fundamental principles of physics for the three forms of heat transfer were applied. Then, the theoretical thermal efficiency of the stove was calculated based on the percentage share of energy gains and losses for the respective heat transfer modes. This analysis shows that the highest energy gain is achieved by radiation heat transfer from the flame and the fuel bed, followed by convection heat transfer to the bottom and sides of the pot, respectively. In order to validate the findings, the theoretical results have been compared with the experimental data at a case study site in Katibougou, Mali. Accordingly, the experimental thermal efficiency is slightly lower than the theoretical value, with a measured value of 27% compared to the theoretical value of 31.45%. The theoretical thermal efficiency can be closer to the experimental efficiency if the combustion losses caused by incomplete combustion of the fuel are taken into account. Full article

Scientific studies on the impact of wood species on solid fuel production, performance, and sustainability are grossly inadequate. The knowledge of this is imperative as users of solid fuels are increasing rapidly, especially in Africa. On this note, it becomes necessary to explore measures that will improve its efficiency and sustainability as an energy source. This study investigates some properties of selected wood species used as an energy source in Nigeria and their pelleting potential. Nine samples were characterized and assessed for suitability of pelleting following four wood pellet quality standards. The properties investigated are physical (moisture content and density) and thermochemical (calorific value, ash content, volatile matter, fixed carbon, and ultimate properties (carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, arsenic, cadmium, and lead)). These were selected because they are among the most important pellet parameters contained in the quality standards. The findings revealed a net calorific value between 10.61 MJ.kg⁻¹ for Tectona grandis and 18.44 MJ.kg⁻¹ for Eucalyptus cam. The ash content, volatile matter, and fixed carbon contents of the samples range between 2.1 and 24.4%, 65.94 and 87.77%, and 3.51 and 18.63%, respectively. Anogeissus leiocarpus was found to be the species with the best rating score in terms of fuel properties, while Vitellaria paradoxa was the lowest. However, in terms of conformity with the four wood pellet standards, Khaya senegalensis, Parkia biglobosa, and Eucalyptus cam., having presented density, calorific value, sulfur, arsenic, cadmium, and lead within the limits of the wood pellet quality standards, were considered the best wood species in terms of fuel suitability and pelleting potential. The findings therefore suggest that not all wood species are suitable as fuel. Thus, for species that do not meet the standard wood pellet requirements, alternatives such as the use of biomass blends, additives, or process adjustments can be employed to adapt the quality to the standards or by using the fuels in improved cookstoves. Full article

Within domestic food cooking, burning firewood in three-stone fires (TSF) is a common practice by more than 16 million users in the Mexican tropical climate region (CR-TR). This article aims to evaluate the implementation of improved firewood cookstoves (ICS) to replace TSF in the CR-TR by constructing firewood consumption scenarios covering 2018–2050. The results show that in CR-TR, with the implementation of ICS, the consumption of 354.95 PJ of firewood, 36.6 Mt of CO_2e, 1.29 Mt of CO, and 163.78 kt of PM_2.5 can all be avoided. The most important reduction in firewood consumption, CO_2e emissions and CO and PM_2.5 pollutants, occurs in exclusive firewood users and mixed users who utilize firewood as the primary fuel source, both of whom are low socioeconomic level in rural areas. Furthermore, most paying-for-firewood users often show negative mitigation costs and a high 50% IRR, while all non-paying-for-firewood users have mitigation costs ranging from 7.74 to 41.23 USD/tCO_2e. At the end of the results section, we perform a sensitivity analysis of the relevant parameters, which complements this study. Therefore, implementing ICS will contribute to the solution of climate change, deforestation, and facilitate the formulation of sustainable development policies for the most vulnerable population sector of the Mexican CR-TR. Full article

The recent analysis from IEA (International Energy Agency) on energy transition in India highlights that cooking continues to be the weakest link in the energy transition process for rural households and that rural energy transition of households to cleaner fuel is nonlinear in nature. Several programs have been designed to plague the voids and address this nonlinearity, but the transition to cleaner alternatives for cooking did not happen in the pace it should ideally have. Therefore, an empirical exercise was carried out at a national level to revisit the disconnect between the income growth and energy transition and identify the drivers of the energy transition process in cooking at the national as well as at the subnational state level for a developing country. The paper adds to the current scholarship on drivers of household energy transition by analyzing the relationship between household energy choices and non-income determinants and proves the nonlinearity in energy consumption of rural households of Bihar. Analyzing unit level record from National Sample Survey, an empirical exercise was carried out by using multinomial logit model to identify the potential determining factors at the individual household and group level. The group effect analysis through fixed and random effect has been conducted purposely to understand if social and cultural norms or community level factors within a village society have any effect on the cooking energy transition of rural households and if that offsets the effect of household income in energy transition for cooking. Furthermore, to statistically examine the perceived non-linearity in the consumption of cooking fuel such as firewood by rural households, Brock–Dechert–Scheinkman (BDS) test was conducted for rural households of 38 districts of Bihar. The analysis helps in inferring that subsidy on modern fuel and/or other cooking alternatives alone may not suffice to drive the transition process, but more targeted intervention rooted in the local cultural context in consonance with social and cultural norms or community level factors could be more effective for sustained rural energy transition. Full article

Based on the decision of representatives from the West African region and feedback from locals in Togo, an advanced continuous-feed, forced-draft, biomass cookstove named “Apeli” was developed. The stove was tested in modified ISO measurements based on the ISO 19867-1:2018 standard. This included a long shutdown operation using wood pellets and short shutdown operations using wood pellets, bamboo pellets, wheat straw pellets and palm kernel shells. Due to the fast shutdown capability, the short shutdown was chosen for more realistic results using this stove type. For cold start and long shutdown operation using wood pellets, the thermal efficiency is determined as 44.1% at a 1116 W power output by emitting 0.272 g CO and 17.2 mg PM 2.5 per MJ_d at high load. At low load, the efficiency is 38.0% at a 526 W power output by emitting 1.1 g CO and 45.1 mg PM 2.5 per MJ_d. Due to a misinterpretation of the standard, the burnout duration of the tests with long shutdown is approx. 1.5 min shorter than required. Using a worst-case approximation, values for a theoretical ISO-conforming measurement were calculated and rated according to the ISO 19867-3:2018 standard. The results showed that the Apeli would correspond to Tier 4 for efficiency and PM 2.5 as well as Tier 5 for CO in high-power operation using wood pellets. The use of alternative fuels is possible, but can lead to higher emissions compared to the use of wood pellets. With regard to possibly using the biochar produced in the process for soil application, it has been demonstrated that the PAH content ensures European BioChar-Agro-Organic limitations. The first results of a field test in Togo have shown that operating and feeding the stove by the target group is easy. The required permanent presence of the user during cooking with this stove seems to have a limited influence on acceptance, which seems to primarily depend on the age of the user. Moreover, it can be concluded that the Apeli has good potential to be mass-produced locally at low costs with a reliable supply of spare parts. This can contribute not only to improving clean cooking, but also to fighting air pollution and deforestation caused by solid fuel burning due to the reduced consumption of resources in the form of fuel, especially wood. Full article

The adoption of energy-efficient, clean, and safe cookstoves can improve the health of poor sub-Saharan households and reduce mortality and poverty, as identified in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite multiple interventions to increase the adoption of improved stoves and clean fuels, few interventions have borne fruit on a significant scale. The lack of adoption is shared in South Africa. (1) Background: The deleterious health hazards associated with flame-based cooking mainly affect women and children due to using portable and cheap paraffin (kerosene) cookstoves or self-constructed metal barrel wood stoves. A shift to improved cookstoves requires significant changes in users’ behaviour. Understanding and addressing the motivations for cookstove adoption and long-term use is critical for successfully implementing behavioural change campaigns. (2) Methods: A case study methodology is employed to evaluate the effectiveness of a behaviour-centred design (BCD) approach aimed at influencing cookstove-related motivations among low-income households in Dunoon, South Africa; the study gathers data via structured observations, co-creative workshops, and card-based choice questionnaires before and after a pilot intervention. (3) Results: The survey conducted before and after the abridged BCD intervention implementation in Dunoon indicates that the majority of touchpoints achieved significant success in influencing the selected cookstove-related motivations of the sampled households, further corroborated by an observed shift in household cookstove ownership patterns targeted by the intervention. (4) Conclusions: A BCD approach suggests possible methods for understanding and influencing the complex motivations determining cookstove use in a context similar to South Africa. The results suggest that linking pertinent motivations to a selected set of touchpoints as part of a cookstove-related campaign can influence cookstove-related motivations linked to the adoption of improved flame-based cookstoves in a localised South African low-income context. Full article

This study investigates the dark side of biomass technology innovations on households’ subjective well-being (SWB) in Uganda. The dark side of biomass technology innovations concerns households moving away from the intangible cultural cooking heritages that they have preserved for a long time. These intangible cultural cooking heritages are important to understand as they contribute to policy decisions on sustainable society transformation (sustainability transitions) in the clean cooking energy sector. This study adds to the scarce literature on innovation for well-being and innovation for transformative change, addressing grand societal challenges while considering the well-being of technology users. Principal component analysis was used to generate the subjective well-being variable from the captured traditional household cooking considerations, perceptions, and practices. Linear regression was used to analyze the effect of improved cookstoves (ICSs) and other factors on the subjective well-being of households in Uganda. The results show that using ICSs moves Ugandan households away from traditional ways of cooking, which reduces the well-being they attach to the intangible cultural heritage of traditional cooking. Thus, innovators, entrepreneurs and promoters of clean cooking technologies should consider the well-being of users along with the benefits of bioenergy innovation to accelerate society transformation (sustainability transitions) in Uganda. Full article

Mitigating carbon emissions has become a pressing concern in the process of economic development across China due to China’s key strategic goal of reaching peak carbon and carbon neutrality. Henan Province, which is located in the Central Plains, has less forest area and coverage than other areas of the nation, but consumes plenty of energy. Therefore, the quantification of Henan’s potential carbon sink is crucial for the province’s response to climate change due to the national commitment to carbon reduction targets. This research estimated the carbon sink of tree forest vegetation in Henan Province from 2019 to 2060 based on the CO2FIX model using data from the 9th Forest Inventory Report and the forest planning targets of Henan Province. The results show the following: (1) The carbon sink of existing arbor forests is mainly composed of ecological public welfare forests, and a small-year fluctuation in the carbon sink will result from the rotation of commercial forests. (2) The peak carbon sink years for existing forests and new afforestation are between the young and middle ages of the trees, and the peak of the carbon sink in Henan Province as a whole was in 2032. (3) More than 72.4% of the overall carbon sink in Henan Province’s arbor forest vegetation comes from the above-ground portion. (4) The energy substitution effect of traditional and improved cookstoves is significantly enhanced during the main cutting period of the existing commercial arbor forest in Henan Province. Full article

The rapidly growing global demand for pollutant-free cooking energy has proliferated the research and development of energy efficient and clean cook-stoves. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the gradual improvements in cook-stove designs, focusing on gaseous and liquid fuel-operated cook-stoves around the world. Various literatures concerning the technical aspects such as design and testing, are brought together to provide an insight into the present status of developments in cook-stoves. This review of cook-stove performance covers topics such as stable operating conditions, flame propagation aspects, heat transfer and temperature distribution within the burner, fuel consumption, thermal efficiency, and emissions. Covering both laboratory-scale and field studies, the various cook-stove technologies reported so far are summarized with relevant comments regarding their commercial viabilities. The numerical modeling of combustion in cook-stoves; human health and the environmental impacts of unclean cooking technologies; and various schemes, strategies, and governmental initiatives for the promotion of cleaner cooking practices are also presented, with suggestions for future work. Full article

Pakistan is not merely confronting the energy crisis but also dealing with the scarcity of economical technologies for the utilization of energy resources. From the basic resources, renewable energy is one of the considerable resources. Due to environmental issues related to greenhouse gases (GHGs) and air pollution in Pakistan, the other energy resources are constricted. In rural areas, biomass resources are a fundamental need for domestic purposes. The prominent reason for environmental degradation and deforestation is due to ineffective use of such resources. Biomass resources for heating and cooking purposes are abundantly available in rural areas of Pakistan. In this context, this study helps us select the applicable cookstove technologies for the Sindh province for the proper utilization of biomass resources. The AHP (analytical hierarchy process) was used as the central methodology for the cookstove ranking. Concerning its improvement, four main criteria corresponding to 12 sub-criteria were considered for the selection of three cookstove technologies, i.e., traditional cookstoves (TCS), efficient cookstoves (ECS), and biogas cookstoves (BCS). The final decision of the AHP framework exposed the ECS technology as the advantageous technology, followed by the BCS and TCS, respectively. To analyze the results, a sensitivity analysis of the major results has also been carried out, and under the final ranking matrix, the ECS alternative got the highest weightage, nearly 36.56%, based on the developed model. Full article

Almost three billion people rely primarily on inefficient and polluting cooking systems worldwide. Household air pollution is a direct consequence of this practice, and it is annually associated with millions of premature deaths and diseases, mainly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. The use of improved cookstoves often represents an appropriate solution to reduce such health risks. However, in the distribution of such units, it can be necessary to prioritize the beneficiaries. Thus, in this study, we conducted field research involving five rural villages in the Northern part of Ghana, where using three-stone fires or rural stoves was common. Concentrations of PM_2.5, PM₁₀, and carbon monoxide (CO) were measured indoors and outdoors. Considering each field mission lasted less than 24 h, assumptions were made so as to calculate the average pollutant concentrations in 24 h through a new, simplified equation that combined efficiency and cost-savings by shortening field assessments. The obtained values were compared with international guidelines. The results showed that PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ limits were overstepped in two villages, which should thus be prioritized. However, further research will be necessary to strengthen and validate our proposed equation, which must be seen as a starting point. Full article

Approximately 40% of the global population (primarily rural poor) rely on traditional cookstoves, with pernicious social, economic, and health outcomes. The Government of India launched its massive Prime Ministers’ Ujjwala scheme in 2016 to promote liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a cleaner cooking system, in poor communities. While there has been a surge in adoption, consistent use of LPG has been tepid. We examined the trend of use of LPG for 18 months in 58 poor households of South India. In place of soliciting survey questions on stove usage, we deployed stove use monitoring technologies to accurately measure the use of LPG and traditional stoves. We also analyzed factors characterizing LPG use. None of the households used LPG for more than 55% of their cooking time. LPG refill transportation, perception of faster cooking, and caste were significant predictors of LPG use. The findings highlight that social workers must engage with these communities to improve their awareness and shape their perceptions of cleaner cooking. Full article

Globally, household and ambient air pollution (HAAP) leads to approximately seven million premature deaths per year. One of the main sources of household air pollution (HAP) is the traditional stove. So-called improved cookstoves (ICS) do not reduce emissions to levels that benefit health, but the poorest communities are unlikely to have access to cleaner cooking in the medium term. Therefore, ICS are being promoted as an intermediate step. This paper summarises the current evidence on the ICS available to the global poorest, utilising data from the Clean Cookstoves Catalog and systematic review evidence from the field. The cheapest stoves offer little reduction in HAP. Only one ICS, available at US$5 or less, (the canarumwe) minimally reduced pollutants based on ISO testing standards and no studies included in the systematic reviews reported tested this stove in the field. We recommend field testing all ICS as standard, and clear information on stove characteristics, sustainability, safety, emissions efficiency, in-field performance, affordability, availability in different settings, and the ability of the stove to meet community cooking needs. In addition, ICS should be promoted alongside a suite of measures, including improved ventilation and facilities to dry wood, to further reduce the pollutant levels. Full article