Google AI (Gemini) says that: “In a high-performance rocket stove, the average gas temperature within a pot skirt typically ranges between 800C and 1,000C. These gases lose temperature as they flow through the channel gap between the pot and the skirt, where they transfer heat to the water.” One of the interesting things that our lab […]
We are currently studying products that help households in rural developing communities to meet their basic needs. Our goal is to develop a catalog of the most affordable, durable, usable, functional products available that have been rigorously user-tested and optimized. To help us choose where to start, could you please take 5 minutes to let […]
HTE Design principles: Increase temperature and velocity of gases, exposed area in pot(s), radiation, proximity of gases to pot(s) without decreasing velocity. Use dry wood. Doubling temperature, velocity and area doubles heat transfer efficiency! Doubling radiation is much more effective! Wood Moisture Content: This is often a critical variable. Ideally, wood should have a moisture […]
The Stainless Steel Winiarski Stove Top The other day, I watched as Dr. Winiarski’s stainless steel stove top (sold by BURN and SSM) helped to force 43% of the heat from a hot fire into a 30cm in diameter flat bottom pot without a pot skirt. The improved stove top adds a lot to a […]
Although airtight biomass heating stoves in the USA on average emit a lot more smoke than Southern Hemisphere cook stoves per unit of time, legally mandated chimneys move it outside where it is diluted enough to generally meet WHO standards. That’s great! Anyone who uses a wood burning heating stove knows that a chimney is […]
That’s an Icy-Ball (and a younger Dean) in a photo from ARC in 1994. Dr. Larry Winiarski and I built 18 somewhat scary prototypes and eventually made ice. We had replicated a pre-rural-electrification 1920s ammonia/water absorption refrigerator. A fire heats the water/ammonia mixture and separates the ammonia out of the water (it turns into gas at […]
Information summarized via Google AI: In 2026, the Chinese carbon market (CCER) is generally a more hospitable environment for cookstove projects—defined as traditional improved biomass stoves that lack advanced digital monitoring—compared to UN or Western voluntary markets. While international markets now demand costly digital “metering” and stricter methodologies, the Chinese domestic market offers more flexibility for […]
To reach multiple, interlinked Sustainable Development Goals, the UN advises that “the share of the population mainly using improved cooking solutions like low-emission biomass stoves reaching Tier 3* or better needs to increase to 35 percent by 2030.” (ACHIEVING UNIVERSAL ACCESS AND NET-ZERO EMISSIONS BY 2050: A Global Roadmap for Just and Inclusive Clean Cooking […]
As we iterate changes in natural draft TLUDs and Rocket stove prototypes, trying to reduce emissions while maintaining high thermal efficiencies, one design principle keeps on suggesting itself: Don’t let the flame touch the pot. The pot is ‘cold’ and if the flame has not burned itself out and contacts the surface, we instantly see […]
Early Rocket Stove Research at Aprovecho Still Rings True A summary of Global Modeling and Testing of Rocket Stove Operating Variations, Nordica A. Hudelson, K.M. Bryden, Dean Still Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Aprovecho Research Center, 2001 In the summer of 2000, Aprovecho’s current Executive Director Nordica MacCarty spent a couple of months […]