NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) for FY 2013 in Australia

Lask Kathleen, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

This action funds Kathleen Lask of the University of California, Berkeley to conduct a research project in Engineering during the summer of 2013 at the University of Adelaide in Adelaide, South Australia. The project title is "Soot Characterization in a Wood-Burning Cookstove Using Laser-Induced Incandescence." The host scientists are Professors Paul Medwell and Cristian Birzer. Four million people die every year from exposure to sooty biomass fires. In attempts to mitigate this health risk, researchers are developing improved cookstoves to reduce the production of harmful emissions, like soot, from cooking fires. Laser diagnostic techniques, such as laser-induced incandescence, can characterize the soot formation and distribution patterns in a fire. In this project, laser-induced incandescence is used to analyze the combustion in the Berkeley-Darfur Stove, an improved wood-burning cookstove, to identify particularly sooty regions in the flame zone and suggest locations for modifications to diminish soot formation. Soot formation in cookstoves has never been visualized with laser-induced incandescence before, so this project has a realistic potential of producing new, unique, and useful data to both the cookstove and combustion science communities. Broader impacts of an EAPSI fellowship include providing the Fellow a first-hand research experience outside the U.S.; an introduction to the science, science policy, and scientific infrastructure of the respective location; and an orientation to the society, culture and language. These activities meet the NSF goal to educate for international collaborations early in the career of its scientists, engineers, and educators, thus ensuring a globally aware U.S. scientific workforce. Furthermore, the laser diagnostic techniques examined in this project could be applied to any number of cookstoves, and the understanding of how and where soot forms in a cookstove would allow for modifications to reduce the production of soot, decreasing the substantial health risks of biomass cooking for nearly 3 billion people worldwide.