Development and Assessment of Thermoacoustic Generators Operating by Waste Heat from Cooking Stove

Abstract

This paper presents the development and assessment of two low-cost, travelling wave, thermoacoustic generators operating by waste heat energy from cooking stove. One powered by waste heat from a propane-driven stove, the other powered by waste heat from a wood-burning stove. The propane-driven thermoacoustic generator was successfully demonstrated to produce approximately 15 watts of electricity using a commercial audio loudspeaker. The wood-burning thermoacoustic generator was successfully constructed and tested to generate a maximum of 22.7 watts of electricity under a pressurised condition. The latter has a high potential to be used by over 1.5 billion people in rural communities for applications such as LED lighting, charging mobile phones or charging a 12 V battery. A comprehensive power assessment of the propane-driving generator as well as the development and performance assessment of the wood-burning generator are described throughout this article.

Review of travelling-wave thermoacoustic electric-generator technology

“…This consortium strove to become a reference point for thermoacoustic research within the European countries. SCORE, Store Cooking Refrigeration and Electricity (2007–2012): this waste-heat recovery project was based on the development of an inexpensive electric generator for remote communities with little electricity access using an annular configuration, the Score-Stove™. 83,84 The initial team consisted of a participatory action research framework that engaged four UK universities and a non-governmental organization that shared the tasks of the project as follows: Social Implications, the international charitable organization Practical Action; TA Technology, the University of Manchester; 18–20 Linear Alternator, the University of Nottingham; 85 Combustion, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL); 86 and Low-cost and Appropriate Manufacturing Methods, Imperial College London. The work at Imperial moved to the City University of London, and that at Manchester moved to the University of Leicester.…”

Design and construction of a two-stage thermoacoustic electricity generator with push-pull linear alternator

“…Jaworski and Mao (2013) and Abdoulla-Latiwish et al (2017) demonstrated the practicality of this engine and its suitability to be driven by burning gases instead of electrical heaters. The demonstrator produced 17.8 W of electrical power when the temperature difference across the regenerator reached 340 K. Chen et al (2012) presented a low-cost thermoacoustic engine, constructed to be driven by a propane burner or wood burner. The engine driven by a propane burner consisted of two stages, quarter and three quarter wave length.…”

Numerical investigation of a looped-tube travelling-wave thermoacoustic engine with a bypass pipe

“…Along with the development of thermoacoustic generators based on flexure-bearing linear alternators, efforts have also been made to develop inexpensive systems using ultra-compliant linear alternators (e.g., audio loudspeakers) as transducers [29][30][31][32][33][34]. Yu et al developed a small-scale inexpensive prototype generator using atmospheric air as the working gas and a six-inch B&C subwoofer as an alternator, and it produced 11.6W of electrical power [30].…”

“…The thermoacoustic generator developed by Backhaus et al had a mechanical resonator [18,19]. All the other electric generators [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] have a combined resonator system.…”