Metal

Sjoerd Nienhuys, April 2009, Revised August 2010

Mobile One Pot ICS

Download the Updated Report

For a few years I have been now and then struggling with the design of the ICS, to overcome some problems of a few users. The attached documents gives the results.

Sjoerd Nienhuys
Hilversum, The Netherlands website: www.nienhuys.info

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Existing Charcoal Stove Improved Charcoal Stove

1. We need a high turn down ratio.

   To bring water and foods fast to the boil, we need high power in the heat-up phase. However, thereafter we commonly need low power for simmering. The stove therefore needs to offer the opportunity to turn down the power output drastically. Options:

   1. Regulation of primary air supply (e.g. closing door)
   2. The gap between pot and charcoal is increasing over cooking time (shape of char container provides more depth = increased gap to the char)
   3. c) The amount of char available at the end of cooking is reducing (conical shape of char container = less char over time available)
2. We need to reduce heat losses to the bottom and to the side of the stove.

   A char container radiates heat to all sides – not just to the pot. To reduce the amount of char used, it is important to reduce the heat losses to the other directions. Options:

   1. Bottom of stove: rebounding plate (with holes) in between primary air supply
   2. intake and charcoal container. Thus primary air is channeled through the
   3. heated rebounding plate, taking some heat back into the char container.
   4. Side of the stove: double wall with air in between for insulation.
3. We need to maximize heat harvest from a given amount of charcoal.

   Charcoal burning is mainly influenced by the amount of air available in the char container. Options:

   1. A vertical spacer in the center of the charcoal container (Lanny Henson’s pig tail”) seemed to increase the availability of air for charcoal combustion.
   2. Additional draft (e.g. forced air) may increase heat generation per time unit. However, this may also increase CO emissions and reduce efficiency of char use.
   3. Secondary air to burn off the CO in a gap between the charcoal and the pot may provide additional heat. However, for this to be beneficial it may not impact on the surface area available for direct radiation from the charcoal to the pot and should not cool down the air in the gap (well preheated secondary air).
4. We need to maximise heat transfer to the pot.

   Generating as much heat as possible out of a given amount of charcoal is one step. But another important step is to make sure that most of this heat actually is transferred into the cooking pot. Options:

   1. “Sunken pot” concept seems to provide best results in terms of heat transfer (Henson stove). Unfortunately, in real life this might not be possible in many work environments.
   2. Best heat transfer is NOT achieved if the pot rests on the char. Optimum is about 1inch away from the char, not closer than that. For Simmer, this could increase to 2-3 inches.
   3. A skirt is highly important to shield the gap area between the pot and the char against the influence of wind. The gap between pot and skirt should bedetermined.

Christa’s Summary of the stove camp

Dean Still, August 2010

One fine rainy morning two fine fellows from StrawJet (http://www.strawjet.com) , an Oregon company that makes equipment to bundle agricultural waste in Malawi, wandered into the lab and asked if it’s
possible to make a stove that uses bundled corn stalks to cook food. I said that I thought it was possible and after some conversation and testing of prototypes StrawJet put up a $250 prize to encourage Stove Camp participants to make it so.

Burning corn stalks leaves quite a bit of ash that does not fall apart but keeps its shape.
For this reason stoves must be adapted to deal with a lot of solid ash. Two types of stoves
were tested: 1.) A Jon Anderson Rocket Stove with lots of draft and a grate and 2.) Two
large TLUDs built by Paul Anderson and Art Donnelley that were vertically loaded.

Participants voted for the best stove that, in their opinion, was most effective. Jon
Anderson won the 2010 Cat Piss Award for a tall Rocket stove made entirely from found
materials that successfully burned the bundled corn stalks. The hope is that a pilot test
could be conducted in Malawi. If so, we’ll pass along the results.

Jon and his wife Flip have been in Haiti recently for three months helping folks to build
these kinds of Rocket stoves. They are beautiful, dedicated people, who like many folk at
Stove Camp, deserve real praise and adoration. I’m happy to send them some of both and
congratulations for making a wonderful stove!

Stoves Camp 2010, Cottage Grove Oregon

Stoves Camp Participants

Fifty two high energy participants attended Stove Camp this year at Colgan’s Island, camping near the river, making and testing stoves, and listening to Fred’s Big Band harmonize so beautifully. Fred and his volunteers cooked breakfast every morning and dinners at nighttime parties on Rocket and TLUD institutional stoves.

Nick Salmons from International Lifeline Fund made a very successful Haitian charcoal stove that was voted “Best in Class” by his peers!

Stove Camp provides a venue for a gathered scientific community to advance knowledge of biomass cook stoves. Participants made new stoves and tested them daily for fuel use and emissions. Every morning the test data was shared and new stoves were constructed.

This year, a great deal of progress was made on charcoal stoves for Haiti. Camp participants, some of whom have worked in Haiti,designed a two-hour Water Boiling Test for Haiti, which uses a Haiti pot
and mimics a typical cooking task, cooking rice and beans. Charcoal stoves were constructed that used less fuel and produced less carbon monoxide compared to traditional Haitian stoves.

See the attached Stoves Camp Report for details of the tests, the interesting findings about the optimum charcoal to use for each stove, and pictures of the stoves tested.

The aim of this test was to finalise the design of the Anila stove, which had been produced in India ready for distribution to households to gather feedback from them about usability.
This is for the project: http://biocharinnovation.wordpress.com/

Without wanting to change the design too much from the original plans, the following changes were deemed necessary –

I am looking to get some Anila stove units in India for some small-scale trials - if you can help please get in touch asap with sarah.carter [at] ed.ac.uk

Testing of the Sampanda stove in Cambodia 12.07.2010
Sarah Carter, UK Biochar Research Centre

See http://www.bioenergylists.org/content/testing-andersons-tl for a similar test on Anderson's TLUD, and http://www.bioenergylists.org/content/testing-everythingni for testing of EverythingNice stove, and Anila stove http://www.bioenergylists.org/content/testing-anila-stove.

Stove: Sampanda stove. Produced by the Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd in India.
Test: A water boiling test (time to boil 2.5 litres of water, in a pan without a lid)
Location: The Iron Workshop, Siem Reap. A well ventilated building – 2 surrounding walls, and a roof. Wind conditions were low, but blustery at times.

Art Donnelly, SeaChar.Org June, 2010

It was not quite 9 months ago, when I sent out an email to a small group of collaborators, with a Subject line that asked the question: "How do we get biochar stoves to Central America?" Of course, like the punch line to the old vaudeville joke, the answer is "lots of hard work". I could not have imagined 9 months ago was how rewarding all that work would feel. I want to share that feeling with all of you.

I recently returned to Seattle from Costa Rica's famed coffee producing area the Santos Zone. This was my second trip since mid- January. I have been continuing my work as a technical consultant to a clean stove/biochar project. Proyecto Estufa Finca (Farm Stove) was initiated by organic coffee farmer Arturo Segura http://www.solcolibri.com/ and the members of the local citizens group APORTES.

Jock Gill, May 2010

With one can: I can make a stove I can cook a meal I can make biochar I can be carbon negative I can start to change the world

This iCan is made from a 7" tall pineapple juice can

I took a 7" tall pineapple juice can, removed the contents, and then marked it thusly:

1. A line around the can 1/3 from the bottom --- this is the top of the fuel load

2. A line around the can 1/3 from the top -- this is the line for the secondary air holes

The middle section is for the wood gas buffer to insure pyrolysis, not combustion.

Next

Primary air supply for a 7" tall pineapple juice can

Marked the bottom of the can off into 8 equal sections. I then used a nail set to make 8 equally spaced holes about half way between the outside of the can and its center. I made a 9th hole in the center. Not too big -- about 1/2 way down the small nail set shaft.

Then I used the line1/3 down from the top to locate the secondary air holes.
I made 8 equally spaced holes with the small nail punch and then used the the biggest punch to enlarge the holes to the full width of its shaft.

At this point I removed the top of the can completely. I left it on for the best structural integrity while I was punching holes.

Done. The All-in-One TLUD is complete. Very simple. Just 17 holes in the right places in one can.

More pictures, are also available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jockgill/sets/72157624142002304/
and click here for more story details: http://www.bioenergylists.org/node/2827

DONALD KEVILUS , May, 2010

DONALD KEVILUS has uploaded a video of his . well, I guess I can call it a titanium micro-Vesto. It is too small to be a 'mini'!

There is a video of Don at http://www.youtube.com/user/fourdogstoveco

Nathaniel Mulcahy May, 2010

Nat Mulcahy and the World Stove Haiti project was nicely profiled on the web site The Charcoal Project. Read the full article A Man, a Stove, a Mission

From the Charcoal Project article:
"Mulcahy is the founder of WorldStove, a small Italy and U.S.-based company that manufactures a range of energy efficient, biomass-burning cookstoves. The company operates two business lines. One sells pricey cookstoves and barbeque grills for the outdoor/camping crowd in industrialized societies. The other line of stoves, the research of which is funded by the former, helps bring energy efficient cookstoves and locally owned businesses that produce them, to the oceans of energy poor people around the world who don’t have access to modern fuels like LPG and electricity.

"Mulcahy has recently returned from Haiti where he spent two months setting the foundations for a sustained long-term plan to alleviate the country’s heavy dependence on the inefficient combustion of the wood and charcoal. President Bill Clinton, the UN Special Envoy to Haiti, highlighted WorldStove’s remarkable and quick work in Haiti in a recent Earth Day address."

The World Stove has also been profiled (by Kelpie Wilson) on the Huffington Post, read WorldStove: Transforming Haiti and the World

And there are some great videos on YouTube, including this one: