Production Usage, and Potential Public Health Effects of Aluminum Cookware: A Review

The ingestion of aluminum from food containers such as cookware, cans, utensils and wrappings and its subsequent release into the environment is a growing public health concern. Aluminum is widely used in manufacturing cookware due to its malleability, high heat conductivity, light weight, durability, availability and affordability. This paper therefore gives a review of most relevant literatures on the benefits and risks of the various types of aluminum cookware in use, the composition and the public health effects of aluminum ingestion. Studies that reported the leaching of aluminum from cookware into food and environmental effects of aluminum leaching were also reviewed. In the developing countries, aluminum cookwares are produced from scrap metals and has been reported to leach harmful substances including heavy metals such as: nickel, arsenic, copper, cadmium, lead, and aluminum into cooked food. Several factors have been reported to increase the rate of leaching of metals from aluminum cookwares. Exposure to metals from aluminum cookware and the public health effects have not been well studied, hence, our recommendation for more studies to elucidate the health effect of this practice. This review also presents measures that can limit exposure to the risks that may arise from the use of aluminum cookware.

A The Analysis of Energy Efficiency and Emission Rate of a Cookware coated with Enamel Material

Metal cookware has been used many people for its better thermal conductivity. However this material also has some weaknesses for its reaction with acidic food which will contaminate the food. Metal-base material coated with enamel is one of the solutions. The hard and non-reactive surface has cause this material has been widely used for processing food. Lower thermal conductivity is one of the problems of enamel cookware. The experimental analysis has been conducted to investigate energy efficiency, emission rate and thermal conductivity. The efficiency is calculated by comparing the useful energy (work) with the input energy. The emission rate is calculated by multiply energy consumption with emission factor. Meanwhile the thermal conductivity is calculated by using simply conduction heat transfer equation. Based on the analysis, enamel cookware has much lower thermal conductivity than aluminum cookware. However this physical property does not much affects the efficiency. The most dominant factors which should considered are type of fuel and technology of stove which consume higher energy inefficiently and emits much higher hazardous gas