A lamp which produces high quality light and doubles up as a device to cook food without causing pollution has been invented by a team of engineers in Maharashtra.
Suitable particularly for rural households which lack clean cooking fuel and electricity, the device, aptly named Lanstove (lantern combined with cook stove), has been developed by researchers from Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) in Maharashtra's Phaltan.
IIT graduate Anil Rajvanshi, who led the team. Says the clean-combustion kerosene lanstove provides excellent light equivalent to that from a 200-300 W electric bulb and cooks a complete meal for a family of five just like an LPG stove.
"To our knowledge this is the first such device where both lighting and cooking are combined together resulting in tremendous energy efficiency and saving of fuel," he says in a research report published by the institute.
The Lanstove consists of a nine litre pressurised kerosene cylinder, a high light output mantle lantern and a very efficient steam cooker which is based on heat pipe principle.
The device has been designed so that kerosene is pressurised and stored in a small separate cylinder from where it flows into the combustor and burns very cleanly just like in the LPG cookstove.
"We developed this technology with our own funds and the trials were funded by Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi," Rajvanshi told PTI.
