Emissions and thermal performance evaluation of improved cookstove

Biomass is still used in most of the rural household for cooking which are normally burnt inefficiently using traditional cookstove. This effort is made to design and fabricate an improved cookstove to study thermographic behaviour, thermal comfort and its performance using various parameters. WBT was conducted to understand the overall performance of improved cookstove. The novelty of this approach is to work on the improved three-top cookstove with chimney, to assess the thermal comfort of community cookstove by analyzing thermal performance, thermographic behavior and IAQ by taking measurements of different parameters. Thermal Comfort was analyzed by 'CBE Thermal Comfort Tool' using ASHRAE-55 standard and measurements revealed that the worker was exposed to a 'slightly warm-to-hot' environment. The average PMV and PPD value was examined by ASHRAE-55 as 2.99 and 92.04% respectively. Body temperature during WBT was recorded 43.73 °C. During experimentation the thermal efficiency of improved cookstove with Babul wood (Prosopis juliflora) was founded as 34.45% and the average power output rating of cookstove was resulted as 1.46 kW. The average CO, CO2 and Total Particulate Matter (PM2.5) produced during WBT was resulted as 19.06 ppm, 878.69 ppm and 3.04 mg/m3, respectively. The Karl Pearson's correlation coefficient was positively and highly significant with the body temperature (0.986), air temperature (0.972), and Mean Radiant temperature (0.980) and in case of CO, CO2, and PM (2.5), the values of correlation coefficient vary in every test. This cookstove saves energy and helpful in reducing pollutant emission which automatically leads to mitigating greenhouse gases. Thus, the institutes, policymaker, government and other related organizations should take step to advertise and implement such a cooking system in needy areas which helpful in reducing the amount of fuelwood used and also preserve our environment.