Stove Research and Development

Developing and producing new stove designs that better address the issues of indoor air quality, deforestation, and climate change. Visit the Research Library to browse our findings.

2011: In 2011, one of Aprovecho Research Center’s major efforts will be to develop and test stove improvements that decrease emissions, or indoor air pollution, by 90%. Health experts have said that stoves must give off only 10% of the emissions of an open fire for a cookstove to not present risk of upper respiratory infection and pneumonia to the women and children who inhale these fumes. A 90% reduction will also help reduce climate change. Presently, most stoves only reduce emissions by 30-50%. ARC staff will work to increase emissions reduction on three specific stoves: TLUDs, charcoal stoves, and cookstoves with a fan. ARC will again offer our annual summer Stove Camp, and will also conduct a January Stove Camp for policy and program staff from the World Food Program and other international aid agencies.

2010: Among other accomplishments, Aprovecho Research Center staff [1] launched our new Institutional Stove, designed to serve the needs of larger hospitals, schools and the like; [2] twice traveled to China to work with our factory to install a more efficient “refractory metal” liner in the StoveTec rocket stove (which will increase the stove’s longevity from 2 to 5 years); [3] devoted our annual summer Stove Camp to the development of a better charcoal burning stove to meets the needs of the Haitian people; and [4] began working with the TLUD (Top Lit, Up Draft) stove community to help fine tune that stove design.