Design and Development of Household Gasifier Cooking Stoves: Natural Versus Forced Draft

In recent years, there has been renewed interest on renewable biomass based energies. This is due to the growing environmental stringent regulation, energy security concern and spiraling price of fossil fuel. More than 80% of the Ethiopian population who reside in the rural depend on biomass energy for their cooking and lighting. Traditionally, food cooking and Injera baking are carried out using an open fire/three stone/system in the rural areas. Despite the substantial effort made by Ethiopian government to disseminate improved biomass cooking stove technologies such as Mirt, Lakech, Tikikil, and Gonzie, the end of pipe technological use strategy is very minimal. In this study rigorous natural and forced draft gasifiers stove design were performed based on energy consumption load for cooking and solid waste management purposes. Standard water boiling test (WBT) and controlled cooking test (CCT) were used to determine the performance of the stove. The WBT showed that the gasifier stove had thermal efficiency of 22.7% and 25% for natural draft and forced draft respectively. Moreover, the CCT indicated that the performance of the gasifier stove were 84% and 72% for natural draft and forced draft as compared to the traditional open fire three stone stove. The burning time using 0.8 kg of fuel was 65 min and 40 min for natural and forced draft gasifier stoves respectively.