Entries by Sam Bentson
Watch Integrated Stove Video
Integrated stove for heating, cooking, electricity Watch a video of the downdraft rocket stove that ASAT Inc. will show in Washington D.C. at the Alliance for Green Heat/DOE sponsored Wood Stove Design Challenge from Nov 9 to 13. ASAT gratefully acknowledges support from the US Environmental Protection Agency under EPA SBIR contract number EPD18009. Long […]
Smoke Distributions in a Test Kitchen
ARC has built and used two Test Kitchens and now, has by far the best one, built by Andy McClean and the three summer interns. We are looking at the distribution of smoke and the effect of opening doors and windows. Past tests with the early test kitchens showed that smoke stratified by height with […]
Patterns for Combustion Chambers
If wood gas passes into flame, it can ignite and less un-combusted smoke escapes. Which of the following patterns has the greatest potential for clean burning? Maybe “the devil is in the details”? The pattern that Dr. Winiarski often tries is downdraft/down feed. The wood is burned at the bottom of a vertical stick that […]
Testing in the laboratory and in the field
Testing in the laboratory and in the field It is important to remember that in the Aprovecho lab, the 3 Stone Fire has used less wood and made less pollution than cooking fires and high mass stoves operated by cooks in the field. The fires in the lab tests were carefully made using dry and […]
Happy Holidays Clean Combustion Techniques
Happy Holidays Clean Combustion Techniques 1.) When wood is burned a lot of smoke is produced but the made charcoal at the tip of the wooden stick contributes heat but does not make much smoke. Rocket Stove: Increase the time that the charcoal at the tip is burning. TLUD: A layer of hot charcoal covers the fresh wood. 2.) If the stove […]
HEPA home furnace filter reduces PM2.5 emissions
HEPA home furnace filter reduces PM2.5 emissions There are a number of methods to reduce personal exposure to household air pollution associated with using biomass fuel for the daily cooking and heating taking place in nearly 40% of global households. These most commonly include 1.) Increasing ventilation rates, 2.) Installing a chimney and 3.) The use […]
Refractory Metals at 1,000 Hours in Salty Biomass Combustion Chambers: Big Problems
Energy for Sustainable Development 37 (2017) 20–32, Alloy Corrosion Considerations in Low-Cost, Clean Biomass Cookstoves for the Developing World Michael P. Brady, et al. Michael Brady and others examined the following: “Corrosion evaluation under cookstove-relevant conditions was studied by two methods: 1) lab furnace testing and 2) in-situ exposure in an operating cookstove. The lab […]
Protecting Health with Biomass Cooking Stoves
It was great to attend the Global Alliance Forum a week ago in Delhi, meeting and learning from so many colleagues. Dr. Omar Masera presented a paper that summarized a survey of fugitive emissions from plancha type stoves in Mexico. The World Health Organization Indoor Air Guidelines figure that 25% of the total emissions going […]