Source · material
Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)
Also: LPG, liquefied petroleum gas, propane, butane, bottled gas, cooking gas
Propane and butane stored under pressure as a liquid and burned as a gas, supplied in cylinders where there is no piped network. In the fuel ladder it is the usual first step away from solid fuel, and in most studies it is the comparison group.
Where it comes from indoors
Liquefied petroleum gas burns with a controlled air supply and leaves almost no particles, which is why a household that switches to it from wood or charcoal sees its kitchen concentrations fall by an order of magnitude. Most of the health evidence on cooking fuel is built on exactly that contrast, with liquefied petroleum gas standing as the clean comparison.
Clean is not the same as inert. A gas flame is combustion, and combustion at a flame front makes nitrogen dioxide out of the nitrogen in the air, so an unvented burner raises it in the kitchen whatever the fuel in the cylinder. Incomplete combustion at a poorly adjusted or dirty burner adds carbon monoxide, and a cylinder connection can leak unburnt gas.
Availability is its own exposure question: a household that cannot refill a cylinder returns to the fuel it can gather, and its exposure returns with it.
What the studies report
12 of 13 Findings — those with the strongest study design.
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | sibling rows carry the control and BioLite 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-0731 Quinn Ambulatory monitoring demonstrates an acute association betw… (2017) | machine |
| — | difference 0.074 (0.002–0.145) | pregnant women · personal exposure of the pregnant woman | prespecified exploratory analysis of the HAPIN randomised trial in Guatemala, India, Peru and Rwanda: pregnant women were randomised to a liquefied petroleum gas stove and fuel or to their usual biomass stove, with 24-hour personal PM2.5, black carbon and carbon monoxide measured and haemoglobin measured during pregnancy; intention-to-treat and exposure-response mixed models | F-0908 Sinharoy Effects of cooking with liquefied petroleum gas versus bioma… (2026) | machine |
| Black carbon | — | pregnant women · personal exposure of the pregnant woman | prespecified exploratory analysis of the HAPIN randomised trial in Guatemala, India, Peru and Rwanda: pregnant women were randomised to a liquefied petroleum gas stove and fuel or to their usual biomass stove, with 24-hour personal PM2.5, black carbon and carbon monoxide measured and haemoglobin measured during pregnancy; intention-to-treat and exposure-response mixed models | F-0911 Sinharoy Effects of cooking with liquefied petroleum gas versus bioma… (2026) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | — | pregnant women · personal exposure of the pregnant woman | prespecified exploratory analysis of the HAPIN randomised trial in Guatemala, India, Peru and Rwanda: pregnant women were randomised to a liquefied petroleum gas stove and fuel or to their usual biomass stove, with 24-hour personal PM2.5, black carbon and carbon monoxide measured and haemoglobin measured during pregnancy; intention-to-treat and exposure-response mixed models | F-0912 Sinharoy Effects of cooking with liquefied petroleum gas versus bioma… (2026) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | mean 442 (405–482) | — · kitchen | two randomised trials in rural Nepal: households received an improved biomass stove or a liquefied petroleum gas stove, with kitchen one-day average PM2.5 measured and birth outcomes recorded | F-1038 Impact of Improved Biomass and Liquid Petroleum Gas Stoves o… (2020) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 0.5 | — · kitchen | cross-sectional monitoring in rural Paraguay: 24-hour time-integrated PM2.5 and continuous carbon monoxide in kitchens that cooked with wood on a three-stone fire, with charcoal in a metal brazier, with liquefied petroleum gas or with electricity, plus questionnaires and multivariable regression models of the two pollutants | F-0813 Monitoring and modeling of household air quality related to … (2019) | machine |
| Particulate matter (PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀) | mean 52.3 | — · kitchen | cross-sectional monitoring in rural Paraguay: 24-hour time-integrated PM2.5 and continuous carbon monoxide in kitchens that cooked with wood on a three-stone fire, with charcoal in a metal brazier, with liquefied petroleum gas or with electricity, plus questionnaires and multivariable regression models of the two pollutants | F-0817 Monitoring and modeling of household air quality related to … (2019) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | OR 0.39 (0.20–0.78) | reproductive-aged women · home | descriptive cross-sectional study among 403 reproductive-aged women (15 to 49 years) in the Central Province of Sri Lanka: cooking fuel and respiratory symptoms from an interviewer-administered questionnaire, exposure assessed with a breath carbon-monoxide monitor and carboxyhaemoglobin estimated from it, with logistic regression adjusted for confounders | F-0876 Pathirathna Impact of solid fuel usage on respiratory symptoms among rep… (2022) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | OR 0.47 (0.26–0.87) | reproductive-aged women · home | descriptive cross-sectional study among 403 reproductive-aged women (15 to 49 years) in the Central Province of Sri Lanka: cooking fuel and respiratory symptoms from an interviewer-administered questionnaire, exposure assessed with a breath carbon-monoxide monitor and carboxyhaemoglobin estimated from it, with logistic regression adjusted for confounders | F-0877 Pathirathna Impact of solid fuel usage on respiratory symptoms among rep… (2022) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | OR 0.44 (0.24–0.84) | reproductive-aged women · home | descriptive cross-sectional study among 403 reproductive-aged women (15 to 49 years) in the Central Province of Sri Lanka: cooking fuel and respiratory symptoms from an interviewer-administered questionnaire, exposure assessed with a breath carbon-monoxide monitor and carboxyhaemoglobin estimated from it, with logistic regression adjusted for confounders | F-0878 Pathirathna Impact of solid fuel usage on respiratory symptoms among rep… (2022) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 2.84 | reproductive-aged women · home | descriptive cross-sectional study among 403 reproductive-aged women (15 to 49 years) in the Central Province of Sri Lanka: cooking fuel and respiratory symptoms from an interviewer-administered questionnaire, exposure assessed with a breath carbon-monoxide monitor and carboxyhaemoglobin estimated from it, with logistic regression adjusted for confounders | F-0879 Pathirathna Impact of solid fuel usage on respiratory symptoms among rep… (2022) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | mean 1.08 | reproductive-aged women · home | descriptive cross-sectional study among 403 reproductive-aged women (15 to 49 years) in the Central Province of Sri Lanka: cooking fuel and respiratory symptoms from an interviewer-administered questionnaire, exposure assessed with a breath carbon-monoxide monitor and carboxyhaemoglobin estimated from it, with logistic regression adjusted for confounders | F-0880 Pathirathna Impact of solid fuel usage on respiratory symptoms among rep… (2022) | 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.
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Coridum Knowledge G-0121, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0121/