A systematic review and bibliometric analysis of electric cooking: evolution, emerging trends, and future research directions for sustainable development

Many developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, still widely use traditional cooking methods that rely on solid fuels such as wood and charcoal. These inefficient and polluting cooking practices have severe health impacts due to household air pollution, and they contribute to environmental degradation through deforestation and black carbon emissions. This has driven growing interest in cleaner and more sustainable cooking alternatives such as electric cooking (e-cooking), improved biomass cookstoves, biogas systems, and modern fuel stoves that can reduce emissions and fuel consumption while providing a safer cooking experience. E-cooking has emerged as a promising option to traditional cooking methods due to sustainability, health benefits, energy efficiency, convenience, safety, and potential for grid integration, making it a promising alternative to traditional cooking methods. This study followed the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews to assess the existing literature on e-cooking from 1993 to 2023. In addition, the biblioshiny package in R software was used to perform bibliometric analysis to identify key trends and evolutions. The results indicate that the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Australia, and China are the top five countries leading in e-cooking research. The study identified promising areas for future research, such as optimising solar e-cookers using artificial intelligence techniques, integrating internet of things and automation technologies in e-cookers, integrating e-cooking appliances into smart grid systems, examining effective behavioural change interventions, and exploring innovative business models. The study findings highlight the need for interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, engineers, social scientists, and policymakers to address the technical, economic, socio-cultural, and environmental factors influencing the transition to e-cooking.