EFFICIENCY OF A MODIFIED CONICAL METALLIC COOKING STOVE INCORPORATING CLAY FOR OPTIMAL CHARCOAL CONSUMPTION IN KARA REGION - TOGO

An acceptability survey of improved charcoal stoves conducted in some households in the Kara region in Togo revealed that 40% of households use the clay cookestove and 30% the conical cookestove. Unfortunately the configuration of the clay stove requires permanent maintenance. To combine the advantages of the two both types of stoves widely used, a modified conical cookestove model integrating clay with an optimized thickness of 4 centimeters is proposed and tested. The procedure used is similar to that proposed by a group of experts for the Household Energy and Health Program of the Shell Foundation. The results showed that thermal efficiency of modified conical cookestove is improved about 17.35% relatively to conical cooking stove but compared to the clay cookestove, the improvement about 5.18% only is reported. The specific consumption of the modified conical stove save 2.76% of charcoal relatively to conical cookestove while over consumption of 2.62% is reported relatively to the clay cooking stove. The study found that the modified conical cookestove offer an alternative to replace the clay cooking stove and can solve the problem of maintenance and durability. Modified conical cookestove or clay cookestove is suitable for long cooking while the conical cooking stove is better for short cooking.