Development and testing of energy efficient and environment friendly porous radiant burner operating on liquefied petroleum gas

•Development and performance tests on a LPG cooking stove with PRB is presented.•The thermal efficiency of newly developed PRB is 15.1% more than CB.•Measured CO and NOx emissions of the LPG stove with PRB is much lower than CB.•LPG stove with PRB can operate without any flash back or flame lift.•LPG stove with PRB works on the natural draft without the supply of external air. In this paper, the design and development of a self-aspirating LPG cooking stove with two-layer porous radiant burner (PRB) are presented. Following the guidelines prescribed in Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) 4246:2002, performances of the LPG stove with PRB have been tested. The maximum thermal efficiency of the PRB in the power range of 1–3 kW is 75.1%, while the respective value of the conventional burner (CB) is 65%. The measured CO and NOx emissions of the newly developed PRB stove are in the ranges 30–140 ppm and 0.2–3.5 ppm, respectively. Whereas the CO and NOx emissions from conventional domestic LPG cooking stoves (1–3 kW) are in the range of 220 ppm to 550 ppm and 5 ppm to 25 ppm, respectively. The maximum temperature difference between the center to the periphery of the PRB is limited to 115 °C. Experiments on the newly developed LPG stove with PRB have been performed over one year and no flash back or flame lift has been observed. As it is self-aspirated, the newly designed PRB works on the natural draft without any safety issues.