Abstract

A significant population of the world live in developing countries and use biomass such as wood, and charcoal for fuel. Improvement in the combustion efficiency of biomass stoves improves fuel efficiency and cuts down on products of incomplete combustion emissions to the environment, which have been linked to several respiratory diseases. The availability and distribution of electricity networks is also poor in these regions. In this work, a biomass stove with a solar powered blower, regulated by a microcontroller which receives signals from an Infrared (IR) flame sensor, was developed. When a yellowish flame is detected, the blower is activated to blow for one minute. The performance of the biomass stove was compared with one without a blower. Charcoal was used as fuel, in water boiling experiments. Masses of water ranging from 1 kg to 5 kg were used, while charcoal mass of 1 kg was used as fuel in both stoves. Fuel residues of both cooking units were measured after the water boiling test. The biomass stove with solar powered blower had improved fuel efficiencies of 39.6 %, 47.2 %, 35.7 %, 30.1 %, and 28.4 % over the stove without a blower for 1 kg, 2 kg, 3 kg, 4 kg and 5 kg of water boiled respectively. Improvement in boiling time of 20.4 %, 10.2 %, 7.4 %, 11.1% and 11.3% respectively were obtain. Comparative results show that the developed biomass burner had significantly improved thermal, fuel, and time efficiencies compared to the stove without a blower.

Key words: Biomass, Blower, Combustion, Cooking, Flame sensor, Microcontroller, Solar, Stove