High-Efficiency Biomass stove design
The same concepts used to make my high efficiency portable stove, I used to design a high-powered camp fire ring! (Above) This fire is 0.7 meters diameter but is over 2 meters tall. Read on to learn about the science behind it and why it is important to the world today.
Seen at left: The Coriolis Effect and Venturi Effect work together to cause beautiful swirling flames to emerge from the stove that I built using only recycled cans, and fuel using only a few broken up sticks.
According to the World Health Organization the 3rd, 4th, and 5th most common causes of human death world wide are Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Lower Respiratory Infection, and Trachea, Bronchi, and Lung Cancer. Every one of these causes of death is preventable. Every one has been directly linked to the inhalation of smoke. In plenty of cases that is deliberate (cigarettes), but the greater part of that statistic (7.8 Million deaths in 2012) is due to inhalation of smoke from cooking fires. Near a third of the world's population cooks on open fires everyday (see three-stone fire below). The two most common causes of death, heart disease and stroke, have both been linked to inhalation of particulate pollution, the sources of which are more varied, but cooking fires are certainly a contributor. Air pollution disproportionately affects the world's poorer residents, who can neither afford medical treatment nor cleaner-burning ways to prepare their meals.
Most of what makes up smoke is still flammable--could combust and release more thermal energy. There are several reasons it ends up being just lung-poisoning, eye-burning smoke. It could have been too dense, not having enough oxygen to combust. It could have been too lean, having its flammable molecules too far apart to start a chain reaction. Or, it could have become too cold for ignition to occur. The trick to efficient burning is blending preheated fresh air with the smoke gradually so that it never cools it down to the point that would prevent blending or combustion.
Now, my mission has been to optimize burning of bio-fuels, mostly twigs, which are not near as homogeneous and predictable as liquid fuels, but which are rapidly renewable and free--I am focused on fuels which you do not need to kill the tree to attain.
According to the World Health Organization the 3rd, 4th, and 5th most common causes of human death world wide are Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Lower Respiratory Infection, and Trachea, Bronchi, and Lung Cancer. Every one of these causes of death is preventable. Every one has been directly linked to the inhalation of smoke. In plenty of cases that is deliberate (cigarettes), but the greater part of that statistic (7.8 Million deaths in 2012) is due to inhalation of smoke from cooking fires. Near a third of the world's population cooks on open fires everyday (see three-stone fire below). The two most common causes of death, heart disease and stroke, have both been linked to inhalation of particulate pollution, the sources of which are more varied, but cooking fires are certainly a contributor. Air pollution disproportionately affects the world's poorer residents, who can neither afford medical treatment nor cleaner-burning ways to prepare their meals.
Most of what makes up smoke is still flammable--could combust and release more thermal energy. There are several reasons it ends up being just lung-poisoning, eye-burning smoke. It could have been too dense, not having enough oxygen to combust. It could have been too lean, having its flammable molecules too far apart to start a chain reaction. Or, it could have become too cold for ignition to occur. The trick to efficient burning is blending preheated fresh air with the smoke gradually so that it never cools it down to the point that would prevent blending or combustion.
Now, my mission has been to optimize burning of bio-fuels, mostly twigs, which are not near as homogeneous and predictable as liquid fuels, but which are rapidly renewable and free--I am focused on fuels which you do not need to kill the tree to attain.