APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY:

• Cooking by displaced people and refugees, specifically in Darfur
• CO2 offset programs
• Cooking with solid fuels for camping or at emergency shelters and food stands

ADVANTAGES:

• Fuel efficient; reduces fuel wood consumption by up to 75%
• Portable; stable in outdoor conditions
• Low cost; easily manufactured and assembled
• Lower greenhouse gas and black-carbon emissions compared to three-stone fires used throughout Africa

ABSTRACT:

Refugees in Darfur, a region of Sudan, use an inefficient method of cooking that frequently leaves households short on fuel wood. This situation leads to widespread hunger and the sale of already meager food rations to middlemen to obtain more fuel.

Berkeley Lab’s Ashok Gadgil has invented a portable, solid fuel burning stove that improves the heat transfer to either of two different sized pots such as those used in Darfur. As a result, the stove uses approximately 75% less fuel wood per meal than three-stone fires, the refugees’ traditional cooking method.

The Berkeley Darfur Stove can operate efficiently in both wind gusts and calm air conditions. It can be anchored to the ground and is stable enough to endure the vigorous stirring technique required for the regional food. The design specifically accommodates the round-bottom pots and flat metal sheets used by the people of Darfur and throughout Africa. 

The stove reduces users’ exposure to smoke, carbon monoxide and other products of partial combustion, and it benefits the local environment by reducing fuel wood pressure on local biomass. In addition, the inherent reduction of emissions from using the stove makes the technology appealing to organizations capturing carbon credits. In fact, a single stove, which typically lasts five years, can save two metric tonnes of CO2 annually, under conditions of non-renewable biomass burning, and about 0.7 tonnes of CO2 annually, under conditions of renewable biomass burning.

STATUS:

• U. S. Patent # D590,202 available at www.uspto.gov. Patent pending in Ethiopia and the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO). Available for licensing or collaborative research.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

• Climate concerns give clean-burning cookstoves a needed push (07/12/2010)

To learn more about licensing a technology from LBNL see http://www.lbl.gov/Tech-Transfer/licensing/index.html.

REFERENCE NUMBER: JIB-2457

SEE THESE OTHER BERKELEY LAB TECHNOLOGIES IN THIS FIELD:

• Cost-effective Method for Removing Arsenic from Water, IB-1742
• Electrochemical Removal of Arsenic, IB-2126