Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati claims to have produced technology that will help the Central government save Rs. 50,000 crore annually. Porous Radiant Burners (PRB), which the institute designed to be used on cooking stoves, are meant to save fuel by up to 25 to 50 per cent and can be operated with LPG, biogas and kerosene. IIT G researchers claim that this is an energy-efficient and environment-friendly technology.  

Prof TG Sitharam, Director of the institute, said, “PRB will play a key role in reducing the overall fuel consumption in the cooking sector, leading to a huge annual saving of about Rs 50,000 crore for the government.” The research for this product was headed by professor P Muthukumar from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. 

P Muthukumar said, “Fuel savings (due to PRB) will be in the range of 25 to 50 per cent and it will reduce carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides emissions by about 80 per cent.”  The research team believes that the PRB-based LPG stoves across India will help save, per day, about 13 lakh domestic cylinders worth of fuel.

The technology will be brought out in the commercial market by Agnisumukh Energy Solutions in Bangalore. Hari Rao, Chief Executive Officer of the firm said, “…Porous Radiant Burner technology will bring back the best practices in thermal management in cooking & industrial applications.” The MoU between the institute and the firm was signed on October 21. 

One of the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) is to ensure availability and usage of clean cooking fuel to 100 per cent of households by 2030. However, SDG India dashboard indicates that only 56 per cent of households use clean cooking fuel. The country needs to cover around 44 per cent of households in the next nine years. Further, India imports about 50 per cent of its LPG requirement. In this scenario, even a small improvement in the thermal efficiency of the stove should ideally result in a significant reduction in LPG imports for the government.