Quantification of carbonaceous aerosol emissions from cookstoves in Senegal

Abstract

In some regions of the world, cooking with solid biomass fuels in open fires constitutes the largest source of elemental and organic carbon emissions. However, cooking-related carbonaceous aerosols are still poorly characterized. This paper presents an innovative characterization of elemental and organic carbon (EC and OC) emissions from cookstoves in West Africa. Four stove types (three-stone fire, rocket stove, basic ceramic stove, and gasifier) using two wood species (dimb and filao) were analyzed on a laboratory scale. The EC and OC emission factors based on fuel energy (EFs) when burning dimb were higher for all stoves, highlighting the need to account for the fuel type when reporting cookstove EFs. The highest EC EF was found for the rocket stove (0.18 ± 0.06 g MJ–1 and 0.06 ± 0.01 g MJ–1 for dimb and filao, respectively). The other tested stoves exhibited the same EC EF when burning dimb (0.09 ± 0.02 g MJ–1) and EC EFs ranging between 0.04 ± 0.01 and 0.05 ± 0.01 g MJ–1 when burning filao. The OC EF was highest, on average, for the gasifier (0.08 ± 0.01 g MJ–1), followed by those for the three-stone fire (0.18 ± 0.03 g MJ–1) and the basic ceramic stove (0.21 ± 0.08 g MJ–1). However, the results from testing the rocket stove and the three-stone fire under real cooking conditions using dimb wood indicate that the laboratory-scale tests overestimate the actual EC EFs. Also, the rocket stove did not show a reduction in wood use compared to the three-stone fire, suggesting that the carbonaceous aerosol emissions from the former produce more warming than those from the latter. Therefore, the total EC and OC stove emissions, in addition to the EFs, must be reported. As the impacts of carbonaceous aerosol highly depend on the location of emission, this study contributes valuable data to emission inventories and climate prediction models at national and regional levels. © Taiwan Association for Aerosol Research.