Source · category
Biomass fuel
Part of: Indoor fuel combustion
Also: biomass, biomass smoke, biomass burning, biomass combustion, wood smoke, solid biomass fuel
Plant and animal matter burned in the home for cooking or heating — firewood, crop residues, dung and charcoal. Burned on an open fire or in a simple stove, it is the largest single source of combustion emissions inside dwellings worldwide.
Where it comes from indoors
Biomass is fuel that grows: firewood, crop residue, animal dung, and the charcoal made by charring wood. It sits at the bottom of the fuel ladder, below kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas and electricity, and it is used where those are unavailable or unaffordable — which is why it remains the cooking fuel of a large part of the world’s households.
What makes it an indoor question is not the fuel but the appliance. An open fire or a simple stove burns at a low, uneven temperature and vents into the room rather than out of it, so the products of incomplete combustion stay where the cooking happens: particulate matter fine enough to reach the lung, carbon monoxide, and the organic compounds carried on the smoke. Exposure follows whoever tends the fire, and the kitchen is rarely a separate room.
The same fuel burned in a sealed appliance vented to the outside is a different exposure. The distinction the evidence turns on is combustion and venting, not the material itself.
What the studies report
12 of 190 Findings — those with the strongest study design.
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | mean 477.47 | — · home | review of studies of indoor air pollution in Ethiopian households with calculated mean concentrations across the included studies: particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, total volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, by geography, stove type and household activity | F-0999 Asefa Human exposure to indoor air pollution in Ethiopian househol… (2022) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | mean 228.38 | — · home | review of studies of indoor air pollution in Ethiopian households with calculated mean concentrations across the included studies: particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, total volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, by geography, stove type and household activity | F-1000 Asefa Human exposure to indoor air pollution in Ethiopian househol… (2022) | machine |
| Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) | mean 63.84 | — · home | review of studies of indoor air pollution in Ethiopian households with calculated mean concentrations across the included studies: particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, total volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, by geography, stove type and household activity | F-1001 Asefa Human exposure to indoor air pollution in Ethiopian househol… (2022) | machine |
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | mean 1361.79 | — · home | review of studies of indoor air pollution in Ethiopian households with calculated mean concentrations across the included studies: particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, total volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, by geography, stove type and household activity | F-1002 Asefa Human exposure to indoor air pollution in Ethiopian househol… (2022) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 18.82 | — · home | review of studies of indoor air pollution in Ethiopian households with calculated mean concentrations across the included studies: particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, total volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, by geography, stove type and household activity | F-1003 Asefa Human exposure to indoor air pollution in Ethiopian househol… (2022) | machine |
| Respiratory infections | ratio 0.54 (0.30–0.98) | infants · home | trial of an improved stove intervention against traditional cooking: incidence of acute respiratory infection in infants followed in both arms, with subgroups by sex and by household size | F-1514 Enyew Impact of improved stove intervention on infant acute respir… (2026) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | only four monitoring sessions in this group; sibling rows carry the control and gas groups | pregnant women · personal exposure of the pregnant woman in the household | sub-study of a randomised cookstove trial in rural Ghana: 24-hour ambulatory blood-pressure monitoring in pregnant women with concurrent personal carbon-monoxide monitoring, analysed by multilevel linear regression with a random intercept for each monitoring session and adjustment for awake hours and the peri-waking period | F-0732 Quinn Ambulatory monitoring demonstrates an acute association betw… (2017) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 17.8 (17.1–18.5) | women of the intervention group · home | prospective cohort in Port Sudan, Sudan, 2016 to 2019: women who cooked indoors were offered a well-ventilated outdoor cooking shelter (rakoobah) and 24 weeks of household air pollution education, against a control group; carboxyhaemoglobin was measured by CO-oximetry in the women and in their children each year | F-0829 Prospective Cohort Study on the Effect of an Intervention to… (2021) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 17.5 (16.7–18.3) | women of the control group · home | prospective cohort in Port Sudan, Sudan, 2016 to 2019: women who cooked indoors were offered a well-ventilated outdoor cooking shelter (rakoobah) and 24 weeks of household air pollution education, against a control group; carboxyhaemoglobin was measured by CO-oximetry in the women and in their children each year | F-0830 Prospective Cohort Study on the Effect of an Intervention to… (2021) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 15.9 (15.1–16.6) | women of the intervention group · home | prospective cohort in Port Sudan, Sudan, 2016 to 2019: women who cooked indoors were offered a well-ventilated outdoor cooking shelter (rakoobah) and 24 weeks of household air pollution education, against a control group; carboxyhaemoglobin was measured by CO-oximetry in the women and in their children each year | F-0831 Prospective Cohort Study on the Effect of an Intervention to… (2021) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 19.2 | women of the intervention group who did not use the shelter · home | prospective cohort in Port Sudan, Sudan, 2016 to 2019: women who cooked indoors were offered a well-ventilated outdoor cooking shelter (rakoobah) and 24 weeks of household air pollution education, against a control group; carboxyhaemoglobin was measured by CO-oximetry in the women and in their children each year | F-0832 Prospective Cohort Study on the Effect of an Intervention to… (2021) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 14.8 | compliant and semi-compliant women of the intervention group · home | prospective cohort in Port Sudan, Sudan, 2016 to 2019: women who cooked indoors were offered a well-ventilated outdoor cooking shelter (rakoobah) and 24 weeks of household air pollution education, against a control group; carboxyhaemoglobin was measured by CO-oximetry in the women and in their children each year | F-0833 Prospective Cohort Study on the Effect of an Intervention to… (2021) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Identifiers
- MeSH
- D018533
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Biomass fuel. Coridum Knowledge G-0108, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0108/