Cleaner biomass cookstoves could prevent up to 4 million deaths each year: researchers

In Tennessee, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Colorado State University and Envirofit International report that up to the 4 million premature deaths each year attributed to indoor cookstove smoke might be prevented because cleaner biomass cookstoves. With 3 billion people in developing countries using open fire cookstoves, the need is great for durable, low-cost corrosion-resistant materials that also enable a stove to burn cleaner, said ORNL’s Mike Brady, who has led alloy design efforts for the team since this work began in 2007. The team is now reporting a new alloy (iron-chromium-silicon base) that shows early promise for better corrosion resistance than the current state-of-the-art alloys (iron-chromium-aluminum) at lower cost.

The team is also publishing corrosion test methods, data and mitigation approaches for next-generation cookstove combustion materials that can be used by cookstove manufacturers to design more durable, better-performing cookstoves. This work was presented recently at the Engineers in Technical and Humanitarian Opportunities of Service conference.

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