Our six-person team for the Char Cube stove presenting the details of our culminating semester-long project to the two professors and our classmates.  

Our stove was designed to address the problems of carbon monoxide poisoning and deforestation facing the Tamil refugees of the civil war in Sri Lanka.  

Our research showed that the Tamils used primarily indoor cookstoves operated at night, when it is coolest.  The mud-walled huts in which they live are without holes or ventilation, so their cookfires merely vent into the room.  This has caused millions of deaths annually from carbon monoxide poisoning, primarily among infants.  

Previous efforts to address this problem included a simple ventilation system of metal pipes through a hole in a wall.  However, these efforts have been unsuccessful, as the users will frequently remove the ventilation pipes in order to use them for rain gutters, etc.  Voiding the safety of the device. 

Our assigned group of six sharing research discoveries and discussing possible avenues of attack for our stove design.  

A simple design with an insulated water jacket was designed in order to both capture excess heat that would otherwise go waste and overheat rooms, and to boil water which is essential to nearly all Tamil dishes, used in rice and tea.  

This design was not chosen because the cooling effect of the water would cause incomplete combustion of burning gases, leading to carbon monoxide production.  

A U-shaped design, also with a water heater built-in, burnt in an inverted fashion to give more time for gases to decompose.  This bulkier design was thrown out for manufacturing difficulties and material waste.  

Simple clay models were tested of each of our prototype designs with crushed charcoal in a lab setting in order to determine efficiency of the design.  

Simple clay models were tested of each of our prototype designs with crushed charcoal in a lab setting in order to determine efficiency of the design.  

An existing stove design which, while efficient, is made by hand on a per-house basis, cannot be moved, and still vents into the room.  Excess heat here is used as a seat-warmer.  This design was not ideal because, for Tamil refugees, the nomadic nature of the camps prevents any but semi-permanent structures.  

Our first concept design, the stove was intended to use more abundant and environmentally friendly biochar for fuel, have a water jacket on a ventilation spout in order to prevent repurposing of the ventilation and to provide boiling water for tea/rice, and, most importantly, was designed with RPI's foremost combustion expert, to completely convert carbon monoxide to harmless gases.  

At the end of each project cycle, we give formal presentations on our process and final product.  Here, Professor Langdon Winner, a noted professor and academic in the field of Science & Technology studies, gives feedback on the Char Cube cookstove.