Thermoelectric  

Cookstove  -­‐‑  
Nicaragua
Christine Horman
Matthew Lee
Mark Wagner
Hohyun Lee, Ph.D
 Background
•  Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the
Western Hemisphere
•  70% of the Nicaraguan population lives below the
poverty line
•  Limited access to power, gas, and running water
•  Rural areas lack access to health care
•  During rainy season, many villages become isolated
due to flooding and road erosion

Benefits
Solution
Need
 The  Problem
•  Widespread poverty and unemployment
•  Lack of
o  Infrastructure
o  Sanitation
o  Health care

Benefits
Solution
Need
 How  can  we  help?
•  Families spend large amounts of money on fuel
•  Women spend a lot of time tending to their stoves
o  Long exposure of harmful emissions
o  Uncomfortable working conditions

•  Improve the design of their cookstoves

o  Reduce cooking costs
o  Improve health

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Current  Cookstoves
•  Open stoves are the main method for cooking food
or boiling water
o  Burn wood or charcoal
o  Large amount of lost heat to
environment

Nicaraguan  women  cooking  tortillas

Benefits
Solution
Need
Examples  of  Nicaraguan  Cookstoves

•  Cooking tortillas in the Bluefields community

•  Lack of insulation or any enclosure Need
Solution
Benefits
Bluefields  Cookstove  
•  Cookstove used in
Bluefields

•  Requires heat shield

•  Temperature:

o  250 °C on outer edge of iron

comal

o  95 °C on tin sheet metal shield

3” away

Benefits
Solution
Need
Bluefields  Cookstove    Cont.
•  Fuel Consumption: 50 lbs fuel per day
(5-6 hours)
•  Fuel Cost: 70 Cordobas for a 100 lb size
sack of charcoal, 3 bags per week
•  Spend 210 Cordobas per week on fuel
•  Average income is 585 Cordobas per
week ($24.38)
•  36% of weekly income is spent on fuel

Benefits
Solution
Need
•  Cookstove (Fogonero) used at a grammar
school, near San Pedro, to boil foods such as
beans for approximately 200 students per day
•  Lifetime: 3-6 months Solution
Benefits

Need
 Proleña
•  Nicaraguan company
•  Makes efficient, semi-permanent cookstoves
•  The Mega Ecofogon is a model recommended for
small businesses
•  Measurements: 112 cm by 56 cm
•  Excellent for making soups,
beans, tortillas
•  Price: $203

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Lawrence  Berkeley  
National  Lab
•  Creates efficient cookstoves for developing
countries
o  Method: Altering the cookstove design

•  Efficient cookstove for Darfur, made in India

•  Price: $20
•  Measurements: 30.5 cm diameter
by 40.6 cm in height
•  Lifetime: 5-10 years

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Biolite
•  Produces portable camping stoves
•  Efficient cookstove with thermoelectric devices for
developing countries
•  Price: $129
•  Measurements: Height 21 cm by width 13 cm
•  Materials: Stainless steel, aluminum, plastic

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Customer  Needs
•  Efficiency
•  Cost
•  Size and Portability
•  Aesthetics/Ergonomics
•  Energy production

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Efficiency:  fuel  consumption
•  Reduce the amount of fuel used
•  Decrease cooking time
•  Reduce waste
o  Less oil used
o  Better quality, sell more

Fried plantains, Nicaraguan staple

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Cost
•  Will be more expensive than current stoves,
but will last longer
•  Under $200
•  Payment plan
•  Assembled in Nicaragua

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Aesthetics/Ergonomics
•  Customers sensitive to overall look
o  Testing showed that smaller stoves were unimpressive to market
cooks
•  Large enough to appear capable
o  Non-intimidating
o  simple to use

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Size  and  Portability
•  Intermediate size
o  Able to fit roughly six 9” tortillas on cooking surface
o  Larger than the typical current cookstove

•  Transportable
o  Easily set up in the market place

Scene from a Mercado in Managua

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Energy  production
•  Provide stored energy that may be used for
alternate devices
o  Power ventilation fan
o  Power small light for indoor cooking
o  Charge cell phone

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Goals  and  Objectives
•  Reduces fuel consumption
o  Save money spent on purchasing fuel

•  Utilizes wasted heat

o  Thermoelectric device

•  Safer
•  Better ergonomics
•  Affordable price

Benefits
Solution
Need
Benchmarking  Results
•  Water boiling test (WBT)
•  Controlled cooking test
(CCT)
•  Kitchen performance
test (KPT)

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Preliminary  Test  Results
•  Heat sink was left to reach steady state for 10 minutes
•  Average, maximum, and minimum voltage was recorded over a 10 minute
period
•  Heat sink was tested with natural convection, and fan convection at 7 and
12 Volts

Heat  sink

Voltage  versus  CFM,  heat  source  was  146°C.   Solution

Benefits

Need
 Technical  Info
•  Thermoelectric Modules (TEM’s):
o  Seebeck Effect: charge carrier diffusion and phonon drag
o  n-type and p-type semiconductors
o  Requires heat source to have uniform heat distribution for
best performance
o  Effective cooling is essential

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Technical  Info  (cont.)
•  Heat Pipes:
o  Very effective at cooling
o  uses phase change of water to dissipate heat
o  Flexible

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Subsystem  Introduction
•  Stove top:
o  stainless steel cooktop
o  ability to switch out to plate with hole for using pots/pans

•  Stove body:
o  double walled, mild steel,
o  pumice stone insulation
o  prototype: bolted together

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Subsystem  Introduction  (cont.)
•  Power generation:
o  TEM’s, battery pending

•  Cooling system of TEM’s:

o  heat pipes w/ fins,
o  exposed to forced convection

Heat sink and Heat Pipe System

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Subsystem  Introduction  (cont.)
•  Ventilation system:
o  duct made of same mild steel
o  heat exhaust fed into combustion chamber

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Key  System  Level  Issues
•  Stove top:
o  stainless steel is expensive

•  Stove body:
o  Maintain uniform temperature across wall
o  Avoid melting TEM’s
o  Reduce outer wall temperature
•  More comfortable to use

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Key  System  Level  Issues  (cont.)
•  Cooling system:
o  Need custom machined mounts for heat pipes

•  Ventilation system:
o  Avoid hot air rising into duct
o  Fan needs to be durable, powerful, energy efficient

Benefits
Solution
Need
Environmental  Impact
•  Reduction in emissions
•  Less wood consumed
o  Forests preserved
•  Manufactured materials
o  Electronic waste
•  Scrapped materials
o  Recycle materials
o  Design with a long lifetime
•  Educate the public on
proper use and handling
of the cookstove
o  Reduce the amount of damaged
materials
Benefits
Solution
Need
 Economic  Impact
•  Small Businesses
o  Reduced fuel costs

•  Local Manufacturing
o  Expanded workforce
o  Local materials

•  Refocusing of resources
o  Schools
o  Infrastructure

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Summary
•  Wood fires in Nicaragua
o  Used for cooking
o  Inefficient

•  Cookstove increases fuel efficiency

o  Thermoelectric modules
o  Fan

•  Nicaraguan benefits
o  Economic, Social, Environmental.

Benefits
Solution
Need
 Acknowledgments
•  Hohyun Lee, Ph.D
•  Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
•  Miguel Gomez, Team MASAH
•  Proleña
•  Radha Basu
•  blueEnergy
•  Paragon