Assessment of indoor air quality of porous media combustion-based cookstoves.

Abstract

The present study analyzes the emission mitigation ability of a porous media combustion (PMC) technology-based cookstove compared to a free flame combustion (FFC) technology-based cookstove. Emission of pollutants, i.e., PM2.5, PM10, and CO, caused due to burning of fuels, namely, methanol, ethanol, kerosene, and LPG in the kitchen environment are measured. The study incorporated exhaustive real-time indoor air quality (IAQ) measurements and presented the temporal variation of measured pollutant concentrations for 2 h (morning meal duration). In addition, 24 h average concentration of the measured pollutants is also compared with the limits prescribed in WHO guidelines for domestic settings. The results emphasized that the utilization of cookstove based on PMC would help in improving the IAQ of the kitchen area by decreasing the concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, and CO. For 2 h duration measurements, the methanol cookstove based on PMC reduced the concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, and CO by 7.7%, 8.1%, and 17.2%, respectively, compared to FFC cookstove. Similarly, in the case of PMC-based LPG cookstove and kerosene cookstove, the respective values were 11.7%, 20.4%, and 41.6% and 55.3%, 62.6%, and 66.6%. Among all the tested cookstoves, PMC-based LPG cookstove achieved the lowest emission values (PM2.5: 20.6 μg/m3, PM10: 31.3 μg/m3, and CO: 1 ppm) which are lower than the prescribed WHO values (PM2.5: 25 μg/m3, PM10: 50 μg/m3, and CO: 6 ppm).