The team that came up with the all-in-one cooker, energy generator and fridge. Back row: Keith Pullen, Chris Lawn and Artur Jaworski. Front row: Teo Sanchez, Paul Riley and Mark Johnson.

　　IT SOUNDS too good to be true - an all-in-one cooker, energy generator and fridge. But this is exactly the sort of imaginative equipment being partly developed by researchers at a United Kingdom university in a bid to raise living standards in developing countries.

　　The project is called SCORE (short for Stove for Cooking, Refrigeration & Electricity) and is funded by two million pounds. It aims to work with rural communities in Africa and Asia, where access to power is limited, to develop a versatile domestic appliance powered by biomass that will significantly improve health and welfare.

　　The team hopes that the equipment will also promote economic growth and reduce poverty by enabling communities to take ownership of its development and establish businesses from its manufacture, repair and application.

　　Dr Keith Pullen, of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London (ICL), leads ICL’s side of the project with Ron Dennis and is working to ensure that the technology can be adopted, developed and maintained in developing countries. He said: “Heat, refrigeration and energy form the basis of a decent quality of life, from storing medicines at the right temperature to improving access to education through electricity for computers and lighting.

　　“But you can’t just go into communities and tell them what they need – what is so important about this project is that we are working in partnership with people to work out what is possible and develop something sustainable based on the skills and the raw materials available locally,” he added.

　　The electricity generating and refrigerating aspects will be operated through thermoacoustic principles that involve the use of sound waves; these convert sound waves into heat and vice-versa. This technology is far more efficient and less polluting than burning wood in an open fire, currently the primary cooking method of two billion people around the world.

　　Dr Pullen added: “Using this technology while ensuring that the device is relatively low cost and can be produced using local materials and labour is one of the great challenges of this project.

　　“Thermoacoustic systems have always been expensive and high-tech - a great deal of the first stage of this project will be taken up with translating the technology into something that can easily be mass produced.”

　　The researchers are using thermoacoustic technology to convert biomass fuels, such as wood, into energy to power the appliance. The wood is burned to produce heat. This then goes into a specially shaped pipe that produces areas of high-gas and low-gas pressure in such a way to generate sound (in similar way to a singing kettle). The sound energy is then converted into electricity by a linear alternator, a kind of gigantic microphone that absorbs the sound. The electricity is then used to power the device.

　　The concept behind the device is revolutionary. This is the first time that thermoacoustic technology has been used to heat as well as cool in one device using biomass fuel.

　　Using thermoacoustic technology is a more efficient way of using wood as a fuel than using an open fire to cook. It produces fewer pollutants. The device will also have few moving parts making it more reliable.

　　The five-year project is funded by grants from the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council as part of its initiative on energy and international development. It will comprise three years of social and scientific research and a further two years focused on technology handover, including field trials.

　　The project is a collaboration between ICL and the universities of Nottingham and Manchester, Queen Mary, the University of London, Los Alamos National Laboratory, GP Acoustics and the charity Practical Action. Universities in Africa and Asia will also join the project on the design, development, production and introduction of the device.

　　Rated as the world’s ninth best university in the 2006 Times Higher Education Supplement University Rankings, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 11,500 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality.

　　Innovative research at the college explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and management and delivers practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment, underpinned by a enterprise culture.

　　With 62 Fellows of the Royal Society among its current academic staff and distinguished past members of the college including 14 Nobel Laureates and two Fields Medallists, Imperial’s contribution to society has been immense.

　　This commitment to the application of research for the benefit of all continues today with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to tackle climate change and mathematical modelling to predict and control the spread of infectious diseases.　  (Source: British Consulate-General in Chongqing)