Carbon monoxide from cookstoves in developing countries: 1. Emission factors

Abstract Cookstoves in developing countries are individually small, but so numerous that, depending on emission factors, they could be significant influences on global and regional carbon monoxide (CO) inventories. This paper presents a new database of CO emission factors for commonly used cookstoves in developing countries. The emission factors were determined using a carbon balance approach for 56 types of fuel/stove combinations in China and India. These include various stoves (e.g., traditional, improved, mud, brick, and metal, with and without chimney) using animal dung, different species of crop residues and wood, root fuel, charcoal, kerosene, and several types of coals and gases. The chosen fuel/stove combinations represent a large fraction of the total in developing countries. Thus, the database can be used to improve estimates of CO emission inventories. The CO emission factors ranged widely, from 3.0 × 10−2 g/kg for the coal gas/traditional stove to 2.8 × 102 g/kg for the charcoal/Angethi stove, nearly 4 orders of magnitude. Since stove efficiencies and fuel energy contents were measured simultaneously, CO emission factors on the basis of a standard cooking task (energy delivered) were also determined and reported in this paper. Task-based emission factors are particularly useful for comparing the air pollution potential of different fuel/stove combinations and assessing the impacts of substitutions.