ABSTRACT
In today’s global scenario, one-third of the world population is relying on wood, agricultural waste (rice straw, rice husk, wheat stock, leaves, pods, etc.), and bio-waste (animal wastes and kitchen wastes) fired cookstoves to accomplish their domestic cooking and heating activities. Low efficiency and high emission of traditional biomass fired cookstoves are the two major challenges for stove designers. Also, the exact quantification of efficiency and different emissions from the biomass burnt cookstoves is a matter of debate. For performance evaluation and fair comparison among globally used biomass cookstoves, many standardized testing protocols are adopted by researcher community. This chapter emphasizes on a systematic and a comprehensive review of internationally developed standardized biomass cookstove evaluation methods. A modest attempt has been made to cover detailed methodology of laboratory- and field-based testing methods, thermal and emission performance parameters, and limitations associated with testing protocols.
