National Networking
Program

Standardization of Combustion Chamber for Institutional Stove

To address standardization problem of institutional stove construction WENetCam cooperates with GERES in conducting R&D on standard stove chamber construction for institutional stoves which have been constructed at schools supported by School Feeding Program of WFP to cook breakfast for children. The objective of R&D is to develop the tools to produce stove chamber with homogenous quality to ensure homogenous stove efficiency. This tool should enable time saving in the stove construction. It is focused on stove using wok as cooking device.

Tasks and timeframe:

1. Experiment on cement mould that would fit between the stove chamber and the wok
2. Experiment on prefabricated ceramic chamber asking traditional potters to make it
3. Experiment on prefabricated “cold ceramic” chamber.

By “cold ceramic”, we understand grog (cooked clay that is grinded afterwards) mix with fine sand and refractory cement. By this way, the shrinkage factor would be very low or inexistent; we would obtain precise standard quality. We would add water to this mix and we would flow it in a metal mould to obtain the chamber liner.

We developed a cement mould but with unsuccessful results. Indeed, the mould is too heavy to be used with fresh clay mix. If we want to use it, we have to wait more than half day to let the mix dry.

We have now a list of potter who are producing big container in ceramic.