Statistical modeling of gas cooktop efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions

Cooktop burners are widely used in metropolitan cities. According to the Australian Government studies on household greenhouse gas emissions, it has been noted that gas cooking generates 30 to 50% of the greenhouse gas generated by traditional electric cooking[1]. Although electric induction cookers are 20 to 50% more efficient than ordinary electric hotplates, its total emission effects remains to be seen since the existing cookware might not be suitable. There are two major problems in designing the gas cooktop burners, viz. energy utilization and greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed study will concentrate on their thermal efficiency, which depends on heat transfer from the flame to the impinging surface, which is quite a complicated issue depending on several engineering variables. In view of the need for a better understanding of design factors affecting cooktop thermal performance and associated gaseous emissions, Design of Experiments(DOE), a key tool in the Six Sigma technology, is often applied to evaluate the magnitude of the individual and interaction effects of each of these variables on the thermal efficiency and gas emissions of the gas-fired domestic cooktop burners. In this study, carbon monoxide(CO) and nitrogen oxide(NOx) emissions from gas cooktop burners would be chosen.