AAAR 31st Annual Conference
October 8-12, 2012
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
How Many Replicates Are Sufficient for Characterizing Cookstove Emissions: A Case Study Using the Berkeley-Darfur Stove and Three Stone Fire
YUNGANG WANG, Ashok Gadgil, Thomas Kirchstetter, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Abstract Number: 43 Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract One third of the world’s population uses biomass cookstoves. The emissions from this source have been linked to adverse health effects and climate change. A large number of “improved cookstoves” with higher energy efficiency and lower emissions compared to the traditional three stone fire (TSF) have been designed and are being promoted across the world, e.g. Berkeley-Darfur Stove (BDS). The stove emissions are commonly characterized and compared using an average obtained from a number of replicates of lab-based water boiling test (WBT). Inconsistent WBT results were reported from different laboratories, and even the number of replicates varies widely. In this study, results of statistical analyses are presented to answer the above question, using statistical sampling from a number of replicate tests of the BDS and the TSF. Our results suggest that cautions should be exercised in the interpretation based on averaging only a few replicate tests of cookstove emissions.