Grantee Research Project Results
Cleaner Cordwood Heating Technology for Tribal Communities: Needs Assessment and Preliminary Design
EPA Grant Number: SU840405Title: Cleaner Cordwood Heating Technology for Tribal Communities: Needs Assessment and Preliminary Design
Investigators: MacCarty, Nordica , Zhang, Shaozeng
Current Investigators: MacCarty, Nordica , Zhang, Shaozeng , Still, Dean K , Evitt, David , Kilkenny, Kiernan , Laun, Michael , Coto, Paula , McDonough, Zachary , Stadtler, William , Mathis, Christopher
Institution: Oregon State University
EPA Project Officer: Spatz, Kyle
Phase: I
Project Period: July 1, 2022 through June 30, 2023 (Extended to June 30, 2024)
Project Amount: $25,000
RFA: 18th Annual P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2021) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air , P3 Awards
Objective:
Today residential wood heating contributes to nearly 25% of all area source air toxic cancer risks and over 50% daily wintertime fine particle emissions. Exposure to these toxics is inversely correlated with income, disproportionately affecting low-income households and especially tribal communities in the north and southwest US. In 2014, EPA developed the Indoor Air Quality Tribal Partners Program, highlighting the health risks created by old pot-bellied wood stoves, and recommending that old stoves be gradually changed out. However, progress on this front has been limited, with few appropriate and affordable replacement options available. This proposed research will be one of the first to combine a detailed needs assessment and participatory design approach in multiple tribal communities by a team with decades of collective experience designing and disseminating appropriate biomass combustion technologies for households. Recent breakthroughs in forced draft combustion by the team sponsored by recent EPA SBIR I and II grants will be applied to these household heating systems to develop affordable, effective, and cleaner-burning solutions for this acute unmet need.
Approach:
Leveraging an interdisciplinary team of engineers, social scientists, and entrepreneurs from academia, non-profit organizations, and tribal leadership, this research seeks to identify opportunities and develop a suite of proof-of-concept cleaner and more efficient wood heating technologies. These diverse mentors will engage undergraduate and graduate students at Oregon State through curricular and co-curricular pathways that allow them to contribute to these research activities. Collaboration with the non-profit Trees, Water & People will work to develop mutually beneficial relationships with the tribal communities to ensure that solutions developed through participatory design will meet the social, economic, and environmental context. Surveys, interviews with experts and households, and site visits will assess community needs to inform the technical design in the laboratories at Oregon State and Aprovecho Research Center. OSU engineers will develop a novel, high-performance stove design incorporating, automated fan-driven staged combustion air and enhanced heat transfer. In addition, high-impact/cost improvements to existing stoves will be explored such as chimney heat exchangers and forced-convection.
Expected Results:
Outputs and outcomes of this research aim to provide the most effective technological modifications to the household heating system possible at an affordable price and in a way that builds local capacity for education and installation. These may consist of simple trainings for users to ensure their existing stoves are optimally vented, installed, and operated; retrofits to transfer more heat into the home; and a new stove design with advanced forced-air combustion that meets EPA 2020 regulations. Impacts will be measured by fuel savings and pollutant reductions.
Publications and Presentations:
Publications have been submitted on this project: View all 3 publications for this projectJournal Articles:
Journal Articles have been submitted on this project: View all 1 journal articles for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
Indoor air quality, Air Quality Index, wood burning appliancesProgress and Final Reports:
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.