CNC-Belonio Gasifier stoves for rice farming families in Nueva Ecija province
The stove project deployed by CNC in July 2014 was designed to evaluate stove usability and char handling. The 12 initial users cooked their meals on the gasifier stove, collected the char, and sent samples from each batch for analysis. The project management and administration was undertaken locally by CNC field associates Baltazar Cruz and Salve Belonio.
The families that were selected for this project had two basic profiles: rural families from San José, located in close proximity to the project manager, and related by family or friendship, with small gardens, and semi-rural families from Muñoz, directly related to the PhilScat institute, where Alexis Belonio was conducting his research and development until December 2014.
With the samples collected, a senior researcher at the Philippines Rice Institute, Dr. Evelyn Javier, set-up a biochar testing experiment to evaluate the toxicity levels of the biochar, which produced encouraging results in terms of seedlings viability. The preliminary results of this experiment, and its abstract can be found here.
Summary
- The project made possible our first rice husk biochar germination and seedling experiment as well as carbon recalcitrance testing of the char samples collected.
- The project explored the usability of both the stove and char handling: Evaluating user acceptance for the stoves; collecting feedback regarding any difficulties; educating the users and their families about safe use of the device and char handling.