Dr. Tom Reed visits our lab!
We have some exciting visitors at the Aprovecho lab! Fascinating people pass through the stove laboratory, including academics, project implementers, and inventors with their newest designs. Dr. Thomas Reed, 87 years young, just spent a week here testing his TLUD and fan stoves under the emission hood. It was inspiring time learning from the inventor of the TLUD! Dr. Paul Anderson in his TLUD Handbook (2010) summarizes some of Tom’s early stove experiences: “In 1985 on a trip to South Africa, gasification expert Dr. Thomas B. Reed awoke one night thinking of a very small gasifier for the domestic stove needs of impoverished people. For ten years he worked to develop what is now called the TLUD (Top-Lit Up-Draft) natural draft gasifier stove…” in 1998 Dr. Reed began work on a smaller, forced convection model with a fan with the intention to make a stove for the affluent North American camper market. He successfully produced the Wood Gas CampStove for marketing in 2003 and it can produce impressive heat for sustained periods.” Tom’s Wood Gas stove is a successful product that’s still for sale and it is exceptionally clean burning. The stove can be operated in two ways: as a batch fed TLUD and when fuel is metered bit by bit into the combustion chamber. The primary air and secondary air are balanced to create a 6 to1 ratio that helps to achieve nearly complete combustion. The design can be made in smaller and larger versions adapting to user needs. The WoodGas stove was the cleanest biomass burning stove in our analysis of 18 stoves recently published by the USEPA.http://www.pciaonline.org/files/Test-Results-Cookstove-Performance.pdf