Abstract
There is a major health concern for people who use biomass as a fuel for cooking in rural residential kitchens of developing countries. The quality of life is greatly affected due to exposure to exhaust flume. In this study, a typical single-burner conventional stove was used to model a rural kitchen. The overall dimension of the model kitchen is 3.50 m × 2.20 m × 1.85 m. A three-dimensional cfd code was adopted to perform steady-state simulations with appropriate boundary conditions. Numerical accuracy was tested for optimum grid as well. In this study, varying intensity of emissions of CO, CO2, and particulate matter (PM) from different kinds of biofuel burning have been investigated. Dispersions of these pollutants in the kitchen space have been investigated for with and without natural ventilation. The natural ventilation in turn has been investigated with and without hood systems. It has been observed that CO (95 PPM), CO2 (2200 PPM), and PM (750 µg/m3) concentration exceed by significant amount than the safe threshold (Wisconsin Department of Health Services, USA, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), USA) (CO ≤ 10 PPM, CO2 ≤ 1000 PPM, and PM ≤ 150 µg/m3) for no ventilation case. Even the natural ventilation condition through roof top chimney fails to keep the concentration below the safe limit. Only natural ventilation can reduce CO, CO2, and PM concentrations by 18%, 10%, and 65%, respectively. However, a significant improvement was observed under natural ventilation for the kitchen with the addition of a suction hood along with the roof top chimney. In this exhaust system, the reduction of CO, CO2, and PM10 are seen to be 68%, 55%, and 80%, respectively. Consequently, to overcome the long-term effect of exposure to all harmfull hazardous emissions, it is recommended for any rural kitchen to utilize efficient forced ventilation exhaust system if affordable or an advanced natural ventilation system as proposed in this study utilizing suction hood.
