CO Emission Reduction Success - ELS Update
If you have been following along with our previous updates on the Extended Life Stove (ELS) project, you can skip to the article below. If not, let’s get you up to speed: The ELS stove is a two-year project aimed at extending the usable life of the Jikokoa charcoal cookstove. The Jikokoa is manufactured in Kenya and sold by BURN Manufacturing Co. (BMC) across East Africa. The current iteration of the Jikokoa reduces toxic emissions by over 60% compared to traditional cooking methods. The BDL engineers working on the ELS project are striving to further minimize its emissions, while applying materials science to increase its durability.
In our last update, we highlighted our objective to reduce the CO emissions produced by the Jikakoa by 25-30% in order to reach Tier 2 status for a potential SNV Smart Development Works financial incentive. We are pleased to report that we have concluded our initial CO reduction study, and after progressing through over two dozen iterations, we arrived at a stove setup that meets our emissions goal. With this success, we are looking forward to exploring avenues of improvement for this configuration in the next phase of the project.
In terms of extending the lifetime of the Jikokoa, we are continuing to implement improved combustion chamber materials. We are exploring a new high-tech refractory technology in addition to high quality ceramic mixes and advanced coating technologies. New fellow Gavin Ray, will be working on coatings in the upcoming months.
Paul Means, our director, will be travelling to Kenya in early February, bringing with him new combustion chamber prototypes for entry into the durability testing program at BMC. While those tests take place, we will be hard at work on Vashon, continuing to research new materials and methods for further improving the usable lifetime of the design.
-Joe Gilmour