Energetic characterization of wood-fueled cooking stoves and ovens used in Côte d’Ivoire

Cooking food is an essential daily activity for humans. In some countries, such as Côte d’Ivoire, traditional cooking methods predominate, including the use of artisanal ovens and stoves. The use of these lignocellulosic fuel cooking systems causes environmental and health challenges. It promotes deforestation and sometimes exposes users to high indoor air pollution. To solve this problem, it is essential to improve the thermal performance of the various cooking equipment. But to improve any system, it is essential to understand and control its intrinsic characteristics. This study, using the water boiling test technique and the controlled cooking test technic, compares the thermal efficiencies and energy performances of four (4) different stoves: the two-support clay stove, the Malagasy stove, the double-walled stove, and the Nansu stove. The Nansu stove has the best thermal efficiency with 17.55%, followed by the double-walled stove (12.58%), the Malagasy stove (11.29%), and the clay stove (9.26%). The controlled cooking test also showed that the improved stoves (Malagasy, double-Walled, and Nansu) are more efficient in terms of food/fuel ratio, reaching up to 4.17 kg/kg for the Malagasy stove, against 1.288 kg/kg for the clay stove. The Nansu and double-walled stoves have a specific consumption of 3.76 kg/kg and 4 kg/kg, respectively. This study also provides data on the barrel oven. This oven has a fuel consumption of 1.13 kg/kg (kilogram of wood burned for smoking per kilogram of fish to be smoked) and produces smoked fish with an average dehydration rate of 38%. It emerges from this study that, despite some conceptual shortcomings, the Nansu stove is considered more efficient than the double-walled, Malagasy, and clay stoves. With a larger combustion chamber, this stove could be an alternative to reduce fuel consumption and improve the living conditions of households.