Development of a low-smoke Mongolian coal stove using a heterogeneous testing protocol

We report on the application in domestic stove development of heterogeneous test methods that can simultaneously quantify gaseous emissions, condensed particulates and the mass of fuel burned in real time. Such measurements can rapidly identify ideal combustion conditions by post-facto dividing the test into arbitrary segments for detailed analysis. Domestic coal stoves typically operate daily across a wide range of operating conditions. The analysis technique was applied repeatedly throughout the development of a lignite burning stove suitable for use in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the coldest and most heavily air-polluted capital city in the world. The outcome is a natural draft chimney stove with a >99% reduction in PM 2.5 emissions and >90% reduction in CO, relative to the baseline product. Including the ignition phase, the fire emits less than 0.5 mg of PM2.5 per MegaJoule. This challenges the popular notion that high-volatiles ‘low quality’ coals are inherently smoky

A conceptual framework for evaluating cooking systems

PUBLISHED 7 March 2022Tami C Bond, Christian L, Orange, Paul R Medwell, George Sizoomu, Samer Abdelnour, Verena Brinkmann, Philip Lloyd and Crispin Pemberton-Pigot

DEVELOPMENT OF A LOW SMOKE MONGOLIAN COAL STOVE USING A HETEROGENEOUS TESTING PROTOCOL

ABSTRACT We report on the application in domestic stove development of heterogeneous test methods that can simultaneously quantify gaseous emissions, condensed particulates and the mass of fuel burned in real time. Such measurements can rapidly identify ideal combustion conditions by post-facto dividing the test into arbitrary segments for detailed analysis. Domestic coal stoves typically operate daily across a wide range of operating conditions. The analysis technique was applied repeatedly throughout the development of a lignite burning stove suitable for use in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the coldest and most heavily air-polluted capital city in the world. The outcome is a natural draft chimney stove with a >99% reduction in PM 2.5 emissions and >90% reduction in CO, relative to the baseline product. Including the ignition phase, the fire emits less than 0.5 mg of PM2.5 per MegaJoule. This challenges the popular notion that high-volatiles 'low quality' coals are inherently smoky

A preliminary comparison between the heterogeneous protocols and the water boiling test

Due to the need for the certification of stoves under both Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and voluntary market projects, there is now a strong drive to create testing protocols and standard operating procedures that simulate the real-world use of stoves. Given the current importance of stove performance tests as a basis for emissions inventories for global climate prediction models, improvements in performance testing are critical to derive representative estimates. This reinforces the need for robust testing protocols that can be used to create performance curves for the inter-comparison of a variety of fuel/stove/task combinations when applied to diverse cooking and space heating needs. Currently stove emission factors are derived from variants of either a Water Boiling Test (WBT) or a Controlled Cooking Test (CCT), in spite of well-documented problems associated with use of these methods. This paper aims to present both a conceptual and preliminary experimental comparison of stove testing methods between the standard WBT and the SeTAR Centre’s Heterogeneous Stove Testing Protocol (HTP) for thermal and emissions performance, using an ethanol gel stove. Recommendations will be drawn from the results and will have practical relevance for stove project managers and certification bodies to develop a set of criteria for improving existing testing protocols; and for stove developers in guiding improvements in existing stoves and the development of new designs