A study by North Carolina State University researchers finds that a new cookstove design, which makes use of compressed wood pellets, reduces air pollution by about 90% for a range of contaminants associated with health problems and climate change. The findings stem from a Rwanda field study designed to test the performance of the stoves in real-world conditions.
“We wanted to evaluate these new, pellet-fueled stoves, and secured funding from the Clean Cooking Alliance and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition based on our experience conducting field evaluations,” says Andy Grieshop, an associate professor of environmental engineering at NC State and corresponding author of a paper on the work.
“There have been numerous attempts to develop cleaner cookstoves for use in developing countries, but while they’ve often done well in lab testing, they’ve had disappointing performance when tested in real-world conditions,” Grieshop says. “However, we found that the pellet-fed stoves performed well in the field. We saw drastic cuts in pollutant emissions.”
Read more at North Carolina State University