Following consultations with low-income households in the HaMakuya district, in Limpopo, University of Johannesburg (UJ) Industrial Design Department head Chris Bradnum has designed a “safe, efficient and sustainable” stove, which reduces the volume of wood required for cooking as well as the amount of smoke and other emissions.
The design of the Tshulu Stove was based on the ubiquitous 'rocket stove' design developed by US-based research centre Aprovecho, which included a burn chamber and directed a chimney of heat to the base of the cooking pot.
“The Tshulu Stove, however, includes [the introduction of] air below the burn chamber, a removable ashtray, standing-height cooking, an inner sleeve that reduces the amount of heat loss from the burn chamber and an outer sleeve that reduces the chance of burning the stoves users,” said Bradnum.
He added that laboratory testing at UJ’s Sustainable Energy Technology and Research Centre had proved the stove to be “incredibly efficient.”
“The combustion efficiency levels are ideal, at 2% for paraffin, 5% for charcoal and 10% for wood, with lower percentage indicating better efficiency. The Tshulu Stove [also] achieves an average efficiency of 3% – a fraction above the ideal paraffin stove,” says Bradnum.
In effect, he claimed the stove would save an average household, cooking three meals a day on the stove, 7 kg of wood a day compared with a “three stone” fire.
“This translates to a saving of 2 500 kg of wood for one household in a year,” Bradnum pointed out.