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Evaluating the Performance of Household Liquefied Petroleum Gas Cookstoves
Citation:
Shen, G., M. Hays, K. Smith, C. Williams, J. Faircloth, AND Jim Jetter. Evaluating the Performance of Household Liquefied Petroleum Gas Cookstoves. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, 52(2):904-915, (2017). https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b05155
Impact/Purpose:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) cookstove testing program was first developed to assist the EPA-led Partnership for Clean Indoor Air and is now part of the U.S. Government’s commitment to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves the Alliance). Goals of the testing program are to: 1.Support the development of testing protocols and standards for cookstoves through ISO TC (Technical Committee) 285: Clean Cookstoves and Clean Cooking Solutions. 2.Support the development of international Regional Testing and Knowledge Centers (many sponsored by the Alliance) for scientifically evaluating and certifying cookstoves to international standards. 3.Provide an independent source of data to Alliance partners. This work supports EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. Household air pollution, mainly from solid-fuel cookstoves in the developing world, is estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) to cause approximately 4 million premature deaths per year, and emissions of black carbon and other pollutants from cookstoves affect regional and global climate. A coordinated multi-national multi-disciplinary approach, including the development of standards and testing, is designed to improve global health and the environment through clean cooking solutions.
Description:
Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cookstoves are considered to be an important solution for mitigating household air pollution; however, their performance has rarely been evaluated. To fill the data and knowledge gaps in this important area, laboratory tests (number of tests: 89) were conducted to quantify efficiency and pollutant emissions from five commercially available household LPG stoves under different burning conditions. The mean thermal efficiency for the tested LPG cookstoves was 51±6%, meeting guidelines for the highest tier level, Tier 4, under the International Organization for Standardization, International Workshop Agreement 11. Emission factors of CO2, CO, THC, CH4, and NOx on the basis of useful energy delivered (MJd) were 142±17 g/MJd, 0.77±0.55 g/MJd, 130±196 mg/MJd, 5.6±8.2 mg/MJd, and 46±9 mg/MJd, respectively. Approximately 90% of the PM2.5 data were below the detection limit, corresponding to an emission rate below 0.11 mg/min. For those data above the detection limit, the average emission factor was 2.4±1.6 mg/MJd, with an emission rate of 0.20±0.16 mg/min. Under the specified gas pressure (2.8 kPa) but a low burner air flow rate with the control set to minimum, more incomplete combustion resulted in a visually yellow flame, and CO, PM2.5, EC and BC emissions all increased. LPG cookstoves met guidelines for Tier 4 for both CO and PM2.5 emissions and mostly met the World Health Organization Emission Rate Targets set to protect human health.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Evaluating the Performance of Household Liquefied Petroleum Gas Cookstoves
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.7b05155
Free access through PubMed Central