[Stoves] Understanding Stoves

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear AD

 

I sympathise with your daughter's frustration. I think we are very fortunate
at the University of Johannesburg to have been able to enrol Masters and PhD
candidates directly into testing and methodology studies, comparative
evaluation methods and innovative calculations - all to do with stoves.

 

It has been done through the Geography Department (Dr Paul A is a
geographer, you may recall). There they have been doing things like using
satellite observations (remote sensing) to track H2S and smoke particles
over vast distances or locating emission sources using on-ground data
recorders. Most of the doctoral candidates were doing something with remove
sensing. The move to add stove emissions was a short step because, like
Ulaanbaatar, the local situation on the ground is really bad in terms of
domestic stove emissions. Some industries were getting away with blaming low
income settlements for H2S smell when in fact they were the major emitters.

 

Professor Lodoysamba in Ulaanbaatar has done lots of interesting work on
particle analysis and attribution to source based on what is in the smoke.
It is a natural step to start collecting particles at different stages of
the burn from various fuels. These can then be characterised and the
information fed into the dispersion models. There are 10 recording stations
around town where particles can be collected for analysis. This situation is
rich with new science, particularly for H2S which is little studied. I have
been using the SO2:H2S ratio as an indicator of combustion efficiency, for
example. Sulphur should emerge as one or the other. There is a strong
correlation between SO2:H2S, CO:CO2 as well as CO:H2. In the latter case the
relationship is not the same from stove to stove, though surprisingly
constant or any particular stove, which itself is worthy of investigation.

 

A serious lack is of course stove designers with a good understanding of
combustion from a batch loaded point of view. The Mongolian University of
Science and Technology produces really good engineers who deal with constant
combustion because they are intended to work with power stations. That is a
good start, but some pretty major reorientation is needed to deal with a
burn that changes every few minutes as the fuel is transformed from one
state to another. Again, lots of new science both in the methods of
capturing the information and in designing better combustors.

 

I believe the downstream effects of your daughter's work with new students
is going to be very beneficial in raising up a new generation of producer
developers.

 

Best regard

Crispin

 

+++++=

Dear Krishna,

the topic of renewable energy based on agricultural waste, and especially of
biomass burning stoves is without glamour. Every year, engineering students
approach our Institute for topics on which to conduct projects. When I
suggest to them that they develop a stove for a specific rural application,
(e.g. a thin film evaporator for making condensed milk or condensed
sugarcane juice), they just thank me and leave, never to return. After all,
after their graduation, they want jobs in modern factories. Therefore they
want to conduct projects on electronic control systems, internal combustion
engines, gear-box configurations, hydrolic systems etc. Rural energy is a
topic totally neglected in our academic institutions. My own daughter, when
she wanted to conduct Ph.D. research on the topic of wood-burning stoves,
could not find a guide, and had to work on an entirely different topic.
However, in the meanwhile, she has herself become a guide and recently
guided the research work of a student who wanted to work on developing a
gasifier stove. He got a Ph.D.  

Yours

A.D.Karve

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