Acoustic Stove Could Aid Third World. (Discovery News)

An appliance being designed for developing communities in Africa and Asia not only generates electricity, but also cooks and cools using acoustic technology.

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The efficiency comes from a technology known as thermoacoustics, which produces sound waves from heated gas and then converts them to electricity.

Here’s how it works: wood is placed inside the stove and burned. The fire heats compressed air that has been pumped into specially shaped pipes located inside the stove’s chimney and behind the stove.

The heated air begins to vibrate and produce sound waves. Inside the pipes, the noise is 100 times louder than a jet taking off. But because the pipes are stiff and do no vibrate, the sound waves have nowhere to go. So outside the pipe, people hear only a faint hum.