The health and environmental impacts associated with traditional methods of household cooking and heating have driven the development and dissemination of many types of improved cookstoves and fuels. However, adoption rates, household cooking practices, and even household ventilation can directly influence the magnitude of real-world impacts. Given the highly contextual...
This study aims to explore whether a robotic cookstove feeder can sufficiently reduce variability between tests of a cookstove, produces statistically similar firepower and measured emissions rates, and reduce tester interaction time during standard cookstove testing as compared to a trained human operator. A series of modified ISO/FDIS 19867-1 testing...
The clean cookstove sector has long sought the tools and analysis methods needed to accurately quantify social, environmental, and economic impacts of projects in diverse settings. To respond to this need, Climate Solutions Consulting and Oregon State University have developed a novel integrated suite of sensors to collect fuel usage...
Designs for improved cookstoves aim to decrease the detrimental environmental and health impacts that are associated with traditional biomass cooking practiced by nearly 40% of the global population. Programs to provide improved cookstoves are found worldwide, and regional testing centers support development of these through emissions testing services. Aprovecho Research...
The purpose of this report is to detail the design and validation of a prototype robot that feeds biomass into a range of small household cookstoves at a programmable rate. Improved design and testing methods for the development of improved biomass cookstoves are needed to design stoves that alleviate the...
Inertial microfluidics refers to the manipulation of the location and velocity of particles suspended in microscale fluid flow without the introduction of outside forces. It has promising applications in flow cytometry and other biomedical technologies because of the potential for lowering cost and complexity relative to current particle focusing methods....
Today, billions of people are limited to using biomass-fueled traditional fires as a primary energy source for cooking and purification of drinking water. Reliance on open burning of biomass leads to exposure to high levels of household air pollution which has been estimated to claim over 1.5 million lives annually,...
Clean technologies can address multiple challenges associated with climate change, environmental protection, and human health. However, the impact desired by introduction of such technologies is achievable only if new options effectively replace inefficient, conventional practices. This ‘design for adoption’ requires understanding of user motivations, associated beliefs, context of use, and...
Clean cooking technologies and fuels have been cited as a viable way to slow climate change and reduce the health and environmental impacts associated with traditional cooking devices used by 40% of the world. While engineers in the Design for Development sector have created hundreds of stove designs that perform...
This dissertation examined the association between HAP and respiratory health, both using simple proxy metrics, such as cooking fuel types, and actual measurements, such as household and personal measures of PM2.5 and BC. We found that simple proxy metrics can predict a portion of HAP levels, and associations with respiratory...