Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Cleaner Cordwood Heating Technology for Tribal Communities: Needs Assessment and Preliminary Design
EPA Grant Number: SU840405Title: Cleaner Cordwood Heating Technology for Tribal Communities: Needs Assessment and Preliminary Design
Investigators: MacCarty, Nordica , Zhang, Shaozeng , Still, Dean K , Evitt, David , Kilkenny, Kiernan , Laun, Michael , Coto, Paula , McDonough, Zachary , Stadtler, William , Mathis, Christopher
Institution: Oregon State University
EPA Project Officer: Spatz, Kyle
Phase: I
Project Period: July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023 (Extended to June 30, 2024)
Project Amount: $25,000
RFA: 18th Annual P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2021) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air , P3 Awards
Objective:
Today residential wood heating contributes to nearly 25% of all area source air toxic cancer risks and over 50% daily wintertime fine particle emissions. Exposure to these toxics is inversely correlated with income, disproportionately affecting low-income households and especially tribal communities in the north and southwest US. In 2014, EPA developed the Indoor Air Quality Tribal Partners Program, highlighting the health risks created by old pot-bellied wood stoves, and recommending that old stoves be gradually changed out. However, progress on this front has been limited, with few appropriate and affordable replacement options available. This project is one of the first to combine a detailed needs assessment and user-centered design approach in multiple underserved and/or rural communities by a team with decades of collective experience designing and disseminating appropriate biomass combustion technologies for households. Recent breakthroughs in forced draft combustion by the team sponsored by recent DOE and EPA SBIR I and II grants were applied to these household heating systems to develop affordable, effective, and cleaner-burning solutions for this acute unmet need.
Leveraging an interdisciplinary team of engineers, social scientists, and entrepreneurs from academia, non-profit organizations, and the wood heat sector, this research seeks to design cleaner and more efficient wood heating technologies. These diverse mentors will engage undergraduate and graduate students at Oregon State through curricular and cocurricular pathways that allow them to contribute to these research activities. Surveys, interviews, and site visits assessed community needs to inform the technical design in the laboratories at Oregon State and Aprovecho Research Center. Engineering students completed the preliminary design of a novel, high-performance stove incorporating fan-driven staged combustion air and enhanced heat transfer. Low-cost improvements to existing stoves in the form of chimney heat exchangers were also explored.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
Outputs and outcomes of this research investigated the efficacy of technological modifications to the household heating system possible at an affordable price and in a way that builds local capacity for education and installation. This included chimney retrofits to transfer more heat into the home rather than losing it through the chimney. Five different configurations were explored and it was determined that placing fins on the chimney would be the most efficient and cost-effective solution, while a counterflow heat exchanger around the chimney could also enhance heat transfer at a relatively low cost. A heat spreader also had potential, but would require re-design for maintaining draft and cleaning purposes. In addition, an advanced staged forced-air combustion in a new preliminary stove design was developed that meets EPA 2020 regulations, achieving 2.3 g/hr of PM in lab tests.
Conclusions:
The primary goal of this project is to provide cleaner-burning, effectively vented, and more efficient technologies for wood heat in homes that reduce the stationary point source emissions of fine particulate matter, VOCs, carbon monoxide, and products of incomplete combustion to the local ambient air and the indoor environment, specifically in underserved communities.
Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
| Other project views: | All 3 publications | 1 publications in selected types | All 1 journal articles |
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Kilkenny K, Zhang S, MacCarty N. Residential wood heat in the US:results of a survey investigating user behavior and operation of wood heating appliances. Energy and Buildings 2024;324:114911. |
SU840405 (Final) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
Indoor air quality, Air Quality Index, wood burning appliancesRelevant Websites:
Oregon State University - Humanitarian Engineering Exit
Aprovecho Research Center Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.