Gas Stove vs. Electric StoveBy: Maya Gordon and Becca

Holdhusen Per. 3Mr. SpanglerWhitefish High School

Is there a difference in air quality from cooking on a gas stove vs. cooking on an electric stove?

Research Question

Background Information

What is the reason for your interest in this area?

• While testing Becca's house with the DustTrak, she realized that while cooking spaghetti and sauce on her gas stove, the PM level spiked, so we were curious if the spike had to do with the gas stove or the spaghetti and sauce being cooked. This also surfaced the question of the air quality while cooking on a gas stove compared to an electric stove.

What is meant by PM 2.5?o Particulate matter less than 2.5 microns.

What is in the air that causes PM 2.5? What are the sources of PM 2.5?o Dust, dirt, soot, smoke, and liquid droplets

are causes o Sources include combustion activities such

as motor vehicles, power plants, wood burning, etc., and some industrial projects

Describe the size of a PM 2.5 particle. • Compare it to something in our world.

A PM 2.5 particle is about 1/20th the width of a human hair.

What is the EPA limit for PM 2.5?• The outdoor EPa limit for PM 2.5 is .035

mg/m^3 over 24 hours. • There is no indoor limit

Hypothesis

The PM 2.5 level while cooking on a gas stove will be greater than when cooking on an electric stove.

Method

• We used the DustTrak to collect air quality data. • On March 11, 2013, we sampled the air quality of the

area by an electric stove in a kitchen for 10 minutes as a baseline.

• Next, we collected air quality data with the electric stove turned on for the extent of time it took to boil a teapot of water we had on the stove (approximately 6 minutes.)

• We compared the air quality data of when the stove was turned on to when the stove was off and realized there was little to no difference in the PM 2.5 level.

• After testing the electric stove, we traveled to a house that had a gas stove.

• There, we ran the DustTrak for 10 minutes to collect the baseline air quality data for the area by the stove. Next, collected data with the gas stove turned on while boiling water, just as we had done with the electric stove.

• After the water was boiling (approximately 6 minutes, again) we stopped the data collection and compared the results of the air quality before the gas stove was turned on and the air quality while the stove was on and the water was boiling.

• Like the electric stove, there was little to no change in the PM 2.5 level, which disproved our hypothesis that stated that their would be a greater increase in PM 2.5 level when cooking on a gas stove than when cooking on an electric stove.

Electric Stove

Results

Gas Stove

Results

Results

• Date: 3.11.13

• Start time: 5:15 PM

• End Time: 6:06 PM

• Minimum: 0.006 PM 2.5 mg/mg^3

• Maximum: 0.008 PM 2.5 mg/mg^3

• Average: 0.007 PM 2.5 mg/mg^3

Conclusions

• We learned that their is no significant change in the level of PM 2.5 while cooking on either a gas stove or an electric stove.

• Any increase in PM 2.5 would be a result of the food that was being cooked, not the stove it was being cooked on.

• We refuted our hypothesis because we hypothesized that there would be an increase in PM 2.5 levels while cooking on a gas stove and a smaller or no change while cooking on an electric stove, but we discovered through our experiment that there is no PM 2.5 increase in cooking on either an electric stove or a gas stove.

Conclusions

• This work could be used in people’s decision to buy either an electric or gas stove. If people previously believed that a gas stove could provide air quality issues concerning PM 2.5 levels, this project shows that there is no benefit in buying an electric stove vs. a gas stove concerning this issue, because neither provide a threat involving PM 2.5 levels.

Improvements

• Now that we realize there was no effect on PM 2.5 levels that depended on the type of stove, I would be interested to figure out why there was such a huge spike in PM 2.5 levels while cooking spaghetti when I took the DustTrak home to test the air quality of my house.

• I would be curious to test the air quality without cooking and the air quality while cooking spaghetti and sauce to see if that was really the cause of the huge spike that occurred in PM 2.5 levels, rather than the use of the gas stove like we had previously hypothesized.

References

"Gas Stove Tops Make Kitchens Three Times as Polluted as Highways."

Gizmodo. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2013.

"Source Strengths of Ultrafine and Fine Particles Due to Cooking with a Gas

Stove." - Environmental Science & Technology (ACS Publications). N.p.,

n.d. Web. 01 May 2013.

"UK Researchers Find Kitchen-Related Indoor Air Pollution Can Exceed

Outdoor Pollution By Factor Of Three." ThinkProgress RSS. N.p., n.d. Web.

01 May 2013.

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