Emission Performance and User Acceptance of a Catalytic Biomass Cookstove in Rural Guatemala.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Paulsen AD
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6647977 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Unclean combustion of solid fuel for cooking and other household energy needs leads to severe household air pollution (HAP) and adverse health impacts in adults and children. Replacing traditional solid fuel stoves with high efficiency, low-polluting semi-gasifier stoves can potentially contribute to addressing this global problem. The success of semi-gasifier cookstove implementation initiatives depends not only on the technical performance and safety of the stove, but also the compatibility of the stove design with local cooking practices, the needs and preferences of stove users, and community economic structures. Many past stove design initiatives have failed to address one or more of these dimensions during the design process, resulting in failure of stoves to achieve long-term, exclusive use and market penetration. This study presents a user-centered, iterative engineering design approach to developing a semi-gasifier biomass cookstove for rural Chinese homes. Our approach places equal emphasis on stove performance and meeting the preferences of individuals most likely to adopt the clean stove technology. Five stove prototypes were iteratively developed following energy market and policy evaluation, laboratory and field evaluations of stove performance and user experience, and direct incorporation of stove user input. The most current stove prototype achieved high performance in the field on thermal efficiency (ISO Tier 3) and pollutant emissions (ISO Tier 4), and was received favorably by rural households in Sichuan province of Southwest China. Among household cooks receiving the final prototype of the intervention stove, 88% reported lighting and using it at least once. At five-months post-intervention, the semi-gasifier stoves were used at least once on an average of 68% [95% CI: 43, 93] of days. Our proposed design strategy can be applied to other stove development initiatives in China and other countries.
| S-EPMC7615187 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We present results of an emission characterization effort, completed as part of a larger intervention trial, of a carbon-finance-approved program replacing traditional cookstoves with "rocket"-style natural draft stoves. The 100 emission tests were conducted across 31 households in control and intervention groups, with repeated tests in most households during preintervention and postintervention periods. While mean fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emission factor for intervention stoves was significantly lower than for traditional stoves in baseline measurements, they were only marginally lower than traditional stoves during follow-up. Intervention stove PM2.5 emissions had a larger contribution from light-absorbing (elemental) carbon than traditional stoves. Repeated measurements in control households provide evidence for strong seasonality, likely due to differences in fuel moisture/types, in traditional stove emissions, with important implications for study design. Seasonality observed in control household emission factors (baseline > follow-up) was in the opposite direction as that observed in indoor PM2.5 concentrations (baseline < follow-up), highlighting that seasonally varying conditions (e.g., ventilation rates) may modify the link between emissions and exposures. Emission factor differences in paired (pre/post) tests from the same households were similar to differences in the medians of entire groups, suggesting variability is dominated by test-to-test variation. Emission reductions from intervention stoves were significantly smaller than laboratory performance would suggest or that are required to strongly reduce exposures. Field emissions assessment like that presented here should be prioritized early in technology assessment and development to provide rigorous estimates of the benefits reasonably expected from interventions with the potential for substantial benefits to human health and the environment.
| S-EPMC7007132 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundHousehold air pollution (HAP) from cooking with solid fuels has adverse health effects. REACCTING (Research on Emissions, Air quality, Climate, and Cooking Technologies in Northern Ghana) was a randomized cookstove intervention study that aimed to determine the effects of two types of "improved" biomass cookstoves on health using self-reported health symptoms and biomarkers of systemic inflammation from dried blood spots for female adult cooks and children, and anthropometric growth measures for children only.MethodsTwo hundred rural households were randomized into four different cookstove groups. Surveys and health measurements were conducted at four time points over a two-year period. Chi-square tests were conducted to determine differences in self-reported health outcomes. Linear mixed models were used to assess the effect of the stoves on inflammation biomarkers in adults and children, and to assess the z-score deviance for the anthropometric data for children.ResultsWe find some evidence that two biomarkers of oxidative stress and inflammation, serum amyloid A and C-reactive protein, decreased among adult primary cooks in the intervention groups relative to the control group. We do not find detectable impacts for any of the anthropometry variables or self-reported health.ConclusionsOverall, we conclude that the REACCTING intervention did not substantially improve the health outcomes examined here, likely due to continued use of traditional stoves, lack of evidence of particulate matter emissions reductions from "improved" stoves, and mixed results for HAP exposure reductions.Clinical trial registryClinicalTrials.gov (National Institutes of Health); Trial Registration Number: NCT04633135 ; Date of Registration: 11 November 2020 - Retrospectively registered. URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04633135?term=NCT04633135&draw=2&rank=1.
| S-EPMC8642932 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Effort of reducing CO? emissions in developing countries may require an increasing utilization of biomass fuels. Biomass pellets seem well-suited for residential biomass markets. However, there is limited quantitative information on pollutant emissions from biomass pellets burning, especially those measured in real applications. In this study, biomass pellets and raw biomass fuels were burned in a pellet burner and a conventional stove respectively, in rural households, and metal emissions were determined. Results showed that the emission factors (EFs) ranged 3.20-5.57 (Pb), 5.20-7.58 (Cu), 0.11-0.23 (Cd), 12.67-39.00 (As), 0.59-1.31 mg/kg (Ni) for pellets, and 0.73-1.34 (Pb), 0.92-4.48 (Cu), 0.08-0.14 (Cd), 7.29-13.22 (As), 0.28-0.62 (Ni) mg/kg for raw biomass. For unit energy delivered to cooking vessels, the EFs ranged 0.42-0.77 (Pb), 0.79-1.16 (Cu), 0.01-0.03 (Cd), 1.93-5.09 (As), 0.08-0.19 mg/MJ (Ni) for pellets, and 0.30-0.56 (Pb), 0.41-1.86 (Cu), 0.04-0.06 (Cd), 3.25-5.49 (As), 0.12-0.26 (Ni) mg/MJ for raw biomass. This study found that moisture, volatile matter and modified combustion efficiency were the important factors affecting metal emissions. Comparisons of the mass-based and task-based EFs found that biomass pellets produced higher metal emissions than the same amount of raw biomass. However, metal emissions from pellets were not higher in terms of unit energy delivered.
| S-EPMC4085603 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Acetylene hydrochlorination is an important aspect of the industrial synthesis of polyvinyl chloride, but it requires a toxic mercury chloride catalyst. Here we report a green, highly efficient and low cost nitrogen-doped soybean meal carbon (SBMC) catalyst obtained from the simple carbonization of biomass soybean meal (SBM) in the presence of zinc chloride. This material exhibits excellent catalytic performance during acetylene hydrochlorination, with an initial acetylene conversion greater than 99% and 98% selectivity for vinyl chloride at 200 °C over 110 h. Analyses by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and temperature programmed desorption as well as catalytic activity evaluations show that pyridinic species are the active sites for hydrogen chloride, while pyrrolic N species are the main active sites for acetylene. An analysis of charge calculations based on model catalysts further indicates that the activity of pyrrolic N species essentially determines the performance of the SBMC catalyst. This investigation of the mechanism of acetylene hydrochlorination over SBMC confirms that such nitrogen-doped catalysts have two different active sites for the adsorption and activation of hydrogen chloride and acetylene molecules. This mechanism is different from that associated with metal chloride catalysts such as HgCl2. This SBMC catalyst is a potential alternative to HgCl2@AC catalysts for vinyl chloride synthesis and suggests a new means of designing carbon catalysts with basic surfaces for acetylene hydrochlorination.
| S-EPMC9051911 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Approximately three billion people cook with solid fuels, mostly wood, on open fires or rudimentary stoves. These traditional cooking methods produce particulate matter and carbon monoxide known to cause significant respiratory health problems, especially among women and children, who often have the highest exposure. In this work, an inexpensive potassium-based catalyst was incorporated in a chimneyless biomass cookstove to reduce harmful emissions through catalytic oxidation. Potassium titanate was identified as an effective and stable oxidation catalyst capable of oxidizing particulate matter and carbon monoxide. Using a cordierite monolith to incorporate potassium titanate within a bespoke, rocket-style, improved cookstove led to a 36% reduction in particulate matter emissions relative to a baseline stove with a blank monolith and a 26% reduction relative to a stove with no monolith. Additionally, the catalytic stove reduced particulate matter emissions by 82%, reduced carbon monoxide emissions by 70%, and improved efficiency by 100% compared to a carefully tended, three-stone fire. Potassium titanate was also shown to oxidize carbon monoxide at temperatures as low as 500 °C, or as low as 300 °C when doped with copper or cobalt.
| S-EPMC6532984 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectivesThis study aims to identify a user acceptance model for the health referral system in Indonesia. The following factors classified into dimensions of organization, technology, process, and individual, were examined: patient centricity, regulation, data security, integration, responsiveness, effectiveness, efficiency, personal beliefs, and social influence.MethodsQuantitative data processing methods were used, including the online distribution of questionnaires to a total of 283 valid respondents who had previously used health referrals. Data processing was performed according to the ordinal logistic regression method using IBM SPSS Statistics 24.0 software.ResultsThe user acceptance model fit with a significance of 0.084, while only regulation, data security, integration, responsiveness, effectiveness, efficiency, personal beliefs, and social influence significantly influenced the patients' acceptance of health referrals.ConclusionsThis study may build awareness in the community regarding the health referral system along with the ideal factors that encourage patients to utilize health referrals. In addition, the provision of health services by health facilities and regulators may take these factors into account so they may provide fair and equitable services for all the people of Indonesia; for example, providers and regulators can improve the utilization of information technology and guidebooks on the health referral system to facilitate communication and standardization among health facilities.
| S-EPMC6304450 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The chemical composition and surface groups of the carbon support affect the adsorption capacity of toluene. To investigate the effect of catalyst substrate on the catalytic performance, two different plant biomasses, banana peel and sugarcane peel, were used as carbon precursors to prepare porous carbon catalyst supports (Cba, Csu, respectively) by a chemical activation method. After decorating PtCo3 nanoparticles onto both carbon supports (Cba, Csu), the PtCo3-su catalyst demonstrated better catalytic performance for toluene oxidation (T100 = 237 °C) at a high space velocity of 12,000 h−1. The Csu support possessed a stronger adsorption capacity of toluene (542 mg g−1), resulting from the synergistic effect of micropore volume and nitrogen-containing functional groups, which led to the PtCo3-su catalyst exhibiting a better catalytic performance. Moreover, the PtCo3-su catalyst also showed excellent stability, good water resistance properties, and high recyclability, which can be used as a promising candidate for practical toluene catalytic combustion.
| S-EPMC9698617 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundDespite their potential health and social benefits, adoption and use of improved cookstoves has been low throughout much of the world. Explanations for low adoption rates of these technologies include prices that are not affordable for the target populations, limited opportunities for households to learn about cookstoves through peers, and perceptions that these technologies are not appropriate for local cooking needs. The P3 project employs a novel experimental design to explore each of these factors and their interactive effects on cookstove demand, adoption, use and exposure outcomes.MethodsThe P3 study is being conducted in the Kassena-Nankana Districts of Northern Ghana. Leveraging an earlier improved cookstove study that was conducted in this area, the central design of the P3 biomass stove experiment involves offering stoves at randomly varying prices to peers and non-peers of households that had previously received stoves for free. Using household surveys, electronic stove use monitors, and low-cost, portable monitoring equipment, we measure how prices and peers' experience affect perceptions of stove quality, the decision to purchase a stove, use of improved and traditional stoves over time, and personal exposure to air pollutants from the stoves.DiscussionThe challenges that public health and development communities have faced in spreading adoption of potentially welfare-enhancing technologies, like improved cookstoves, have highlighted the need for interdisciplinary, multisectoral approaches. The design of the P3 project draws on economic theory, public health practice, engineering, and environmental sciences, to more fully grasp the drivers and barriers to expanding access to and uptake of cleaner stoves. Our partnership between academic institutions, in the US and Ghana, and a local environmental non-governmental organization creates unique opportunities to disseminate and scale up lessons learned.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT03617952 7/31/18 (Retrospectively Registered).
| S-EPMC6206711 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Objective:We present qualitative findings from interviews with frontline clinicians and service users of a fetal telemedicine service. Methods:Semi-structured interviews with clinical stakeholders and service users were conducted, undertaken as part of a service evaluation. Data collection was undertaken by different teams, using interview schedules aligned to independent evaluation aims. Data were subjected to thematic analysis. Results:Sonographers reported four main challenges: delivering a shared consultation; the requirement to resist scanning intuitively; communications during the scan; and restricted room space. Notwithstanding, all clinicians reported that participating women were accepting of the technology. Service users reported few concerns. The main benefits of fetal telemedicine were identified as upskilled staff, increased access to specialist support and improved management of complex pregnancies. Convenience was identified as the main benefit by service users, including savings in time and money from not having to travel, take time off work, and arrange childcare. Conclusions:Service users and clinical stakeholders were accepting of the service. Service users reported satisfaction with communications during the consultation and awareness that telemedicine had facilitated local access to clinical expertise. Whilst clinical stakeholders reported challenges, the iterative nature of the evaluation meant that concerns were discussed, responded to, and overcome as the pilot developed. Clinical stakeholders' perception of benefits for service users encouraged their acceptance. Moreover, the evaluation established that fetal ultrasound telemedicine is a viable method to access expertise safely and remotely. It provided demonstrable evidence of a potential solution to some of the healthcare challenges facing rural hospitals.
| S-EPMC7232054 | biostudies-literature