Patents

• SK Tyagi, Alok Kumar, SP Parameswaran and Devershi Maurya, Smoke-free Jaggery production using agro- & agro-processing wastes (Ref. No. FT/IDF/03/2024/10)

• SK Tyagi, Agro-wastes biomass pellet-based cookstove cleaner than LPG stove (Ref. No. FT/IDF/03/2024/27).

• SK Tyagi PR Chauhan and G. Raveesh, A Method for Developing Adsorbent from Sugarcane Bagasse for Sustainable Cooling and Atmospheric Water Harvesting (Ref. No. FT/IDF/02/2024/10).

• S. K. Tyagi, Himanshu, K. Pal and Sanjeev Jain, Gasifier based biomass cookstove as clean as the LPG stove, Patent No. FT/IDF/03/2021/34 (Application No. 202111040429) 2021.

• S. K. Tyagi, Biomass pellet based combustion devices, Patent No. 20557/2018-DEL (Ref. No.201811019556) 2018.

Development of Clean Biomass Cookstove: At Par with LPG Stove

During the last seven decades, improved cookstoves have not captured the market, despite intensive multifarious efforts in India and elsewhere. More than 50% of rural population of India (900 million) and one-third of world population (2.4 billion) use solid biomass in the traditional less-efficient biomass cookstoves to meet their day-to-day energy needs of cooking and heating, leading to air pollution that results in following problems.

Health effects: The emission of black smoke, particularly the particulate matter and harmful gases coming out of the biomass cookstoves, is responsible for more than 1.0 million deaths in India (23% of total), and around 4.7 million deaths globally, each year. It also leads to chronic diseases in the cooks and their family members, mostly females and the children in the vicinity.

Environmental effects: The release of black smoke into the environment, especially particulate matter, unburnt volatile matter, black carbon, etc., degrades the environment. Up to 25% of black carbon emissions come from burning solid fuels for household energy needs in inefficient cookstoves. Up to 34% of wood fuel harvested is unsustainable, contributing to forest degradation, deforestation and climate change.

The improved cookstoves in India and elsewhere have three relevant aspects: (1) reduced emissions related to global warming and climate change; (2) reduced emissions related to human health; and (3) the potential to create much-desired remunerative rural employment.

In order to promote faster adoption of improved biomass cookstoves, the GOI has already lifted some barriers in the form of indirect taxes such as excise, sales tax and octroi for cookstoves, which complicated dissemination, by introducing a pan-India tax in the form of a goods and services tax (GST). The payment of these multiple taxes was a tremendous bureaucratic hassle, besides increasing the cost of indigenously manufactured goods, while raising barriers to and suppressing innovative products.

Also, the biomass-based indigenous renewable and carbon neutral energy for cooking and heating systems have to compete with highly subsidized imported fuel like LPG, releasing net 3.15 kg CO2e/kg of fuel, which is grossly unfair.

Since the subsidies cannot be easily withdrawn for political reasons once given, the biomass pellets should be given equivalent treatment in the form of subsidies, not just comparable to but higher than those of the imported LPG, in order not only to promote the development of indigenous technology and skill but also to fulfil the visionary missions of the GOI such as ‘Make in India’, doubling the ‘Income of the Farmers’, and generating ‘Rural Employment’.

The rationale for the above is that the biomass being used for processed fuel like densification (pel- lets) is either agro-residue or wastes from the agro-processing units directly or indirectly, and is mostly available in the rural part of the country. Utilization of the available accessible agro-biomass as cookstove fuel is more desirable compared to the present practice of open field burning resulting in harmful pollution.

Further, the biomass-based local industry should also be strengthened and obtain equivalent treatment in the form of receiving subsidies comparable to that of LPG, in order to create a level playing field for imported LPG and indigenously produced biomass pellets as local fuel for similar applications. This policy paralysis comes from the will of the GOI, and the lack of understanding about introducing a locally available renewable energy fuel, and about the manufacturing sector, by policymakers, both bureaucrats and politicians.

The ever increasing problem of excess biomass, its traditional usage and disposal is creating problems to human health and environment leading several issues globally. It is therefore, proposed to have value added products from biomass like pellets, briquettes, biochar, activate carbon and activate carbon composites for cooking, process heating water harvesting and heat-driven cooling applications.

Swami Samarth Electronics Pvt. Ltd. Nashik in collaboration with Department of Energy Science & Engineering, IIT Delhi has developed biomass pellet based cookstoves of different capacity having the emissions of PM2.5, and CO better than the LPG stove, as given in the below Tables using BIS and ISO protocols.

Table 1: Experimental results for SS-IITD (Medium size)