Eliminating contaminants with a piezoelectric transducer in the design of low-cost smart kitchen range hoods

The exhaust fan in a kitchen range hood is required to generate an adequate suction flow to eliminate the especially high levels of cooking contaminants in Chinese kitchens. Reducing the range hood noise and its power consumption down to an acceptable level is an important issue. In this paper, a low-cost smart range hood system is proposed. A sensitive piezoelectric transducer senses the level of the cooking contaminants and the output regulates the speed of the exhaust fan. Under several cooking conditions, the speed of the exhaust fan, its noise level, and the power consumption were examined. Results showed that the noise level and power consumption can be markedly reduced with the transducer and the control circuit. The average noise level is 65.66 dB and the power consumption 123.97 W, both lower than those of the conventional range hood system, which are 72 dB and 216 W, respectively.