The Rocket Stove was a project built for the MIT Lemelson InvenTeam competition. It is designed to efficiently filter smoke and generate electricity simultaneously. While providing a cooking surface for our user.
The Rocket Stove uses three copper rods that run from the inside of the stove, where the fire is, out to where three TEC plates are mounted on the side. These copper rods transfer heat to the hot side of the 40mm TEC plates, enabling them to produce electricity as the heat travels across the TEC plate. Each TEC plate will produce 2-3 Volts. Together the TEC plates produce enough energy to charge a mobile device as well as power the set of LED lights providing internal lighting.
The smoke from the fire is then sent out a chimney to prevent smoke inhalation. This was designed with the notion of deploying it in rural Uganda where women and children are often in charge of maintaining the cook fires for many hours a day. These cook fires are often indoors and have little ventilation. They also often rely on kerosene lamps which can be dangerous if dropped. So we tried to design something that could begin to solve some of these problems in a low-cost form factor that also didn’t require drastic changes in cooking techniques.