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Growing need for non-renewable energy, like petroleum, and its extraction challenges urge scientists to prioritize renewable resources for sustainable energy. Extensive research is addressing domestic LPG overconsumption and energy-saving. This study focuses on enhancing energy efficiency by adding fins to the bottom of specific cookware. To achieve this goal, a study involves the analysis of up to five stainless steel cookwares, each equipped with a unique fin setup designed to enhance thermal efficiency, raise temperatures more effectively, reduce gas consumption, optimize gas flow rates, and assess various dimensionless numbers. Results shows that among all the five cookwares, Cookware 3 (CW3) outperformed by showing the thermal efficiency of 61.5% to the gas flow rate at 15.27 mL s−1. This modified cookware showed an improved thermal efficiency (4.065% at gas flow rate of 15.27 mL s−1) when compared to the performance of a normal cookware with no fin arrangement present. In addition, the experimental data are validated using ANSYS Fluent software and MATLAB platform with Deep Neural Network-based Binary Bat algorithm (DNN-BBA). The results of the DNN-BBA technique showed a strong correlation with the actual results for temperature increase, thermal efficiency, gas consumption, Nusselt number, Prandtl number, and Rayleigh number. Additionally, the present study is able to maintain the burner's thermal efficiency at a higher level of 3%, compared to the previous study which achieved 2.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In low-income countries, a widespread but poorly studied type of cottage industry consists of melting scrap metal for making cookware. We assessed the exposure to lead (Pb) among artisanal workers, and their families, involved in manufacturing cookware from scrap metal. In a cross-sectional survey, we compared artisanal cookware manufacturing foundries with carpentry workshops (negative controls) and car battery repair workshops (positive controls), all located in residential areas, in Lubumbashi (DR Congo). We collected surface dust in the workspaces, and blood and urine samples among workers, as well as residents living in the cookware workshops. Trace elements were quantified in the samples by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). In surface dust, median Pb concentrations were higher in cookware foundries (347 mg/kg) than in carpentries (234 mg/kg) but lower than in battery repair workshops (22,000 mg/kg). In workers making the cookware (n = 24), geometric mean (GM) Pb blood cencentration was 118 μg/L [interquartile range (IQR) 78.4–204], i.e. nearly twice as high as among carpenters [60.2 μg/L (44.4–84.7), n = 33], and half the concentration of battery repair workers [255 μg/L (197–362), n = 23]. Resident children from the cookware foundries, had higher urinary Pb [6.2 μg/g creatinine (2.3–19.3), n = 6] than adults [2.3 (2.2–2.5), n = 3]. Our investigation confirms the high Pb hazard linked to car battery repair and reveals a high exposure to Pb among artisanal cookware manufacturers and their families, especially children, in residential areas of a city in a low-income country. [Display omitted] • Smelting scrap metal in artisanal furnaces to make cookware is common in Africa. • Blood and urinary metals were measured in workers and residents of cookware workshops. • Values were compared to those of workers in carpentry and battery repair workshops. • High exposure to lead in cookware manufacturing workshops, including among children. • Artisanal recycling of scrap metal represents a substantial public health threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]