Name
Thermo EL Stove: turning bioresources into clean cooking energy
Description
In sub Saharan Africa, bioresources are everywhere, yet they are often treated as waste instead of opportunity. After every harvest, fields are left with maize stalks, rice husks, and sugarcane residues. In markets and homes, food waste accumulates daily. In many rural areas, even treated organic waste has no second life. Yet this same region is also home to more than 900 million people who still depend on firewood and charcoal for cooking, slowly depleting forests and deepening environmental strain. Across the world, the picture is just as urgent. About 2.1 billion people still cook with polluting fuels, and household air pollution is responsible for around 3.2 million premature deaths every year, according to the World Health Organization. At the same time, humanity throws away nearly 1.3 billion tonnes of food every year, much of it becoming unmanaged organic waste instead of useful energy. The Thermo EL Stove is built from this contradiction. It asks a simple question: what if waste was not the end of a cycle, but the beginning of energy? By transforming locally available bioresources into carbon neutral briquettes, the stove gives agricultural residues and organic waste a second life as clean cooking fuel. As the briquettes burn, thermoelectric technology silently captures the heat difference between the flame and the stove surface, converting it into electricity for lighting and phone charging. Heat becomes power. Waste becomes value. Silence becomes innovation. The Thermo EL Stove is a patented and internationally recognized clean energy innovation. This is more than a stove. It is a circular energy system that restores dignity to bioresources, reduces deforestation, cuts emissions, and brings clean energy access to the heart of households that need it most.
Authors
Innocent Mandili, Malawi University of Science and Technology, Malawi
Chomora Mikeka, University of Malawi, Malawi
Mario Chirwa Kajombo, Malawi University of Science and Technology, Malawi