A 2002
mercury emissions inventory developed by the Northeast States
for Coordinated Air Use Management using standard fuel oil mercury
(Hg) emission factors from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(known as US EPA “AP-42” factors) identified residential
fuel oil combustion as an important contributor to Hg air emissions
in the northeastern United States. Published literature values, however,
suggest much lower mercury content in heating oil than inferred from
the US EPA factors. To better characterize mercury (along with other
trace element) content in heating oil sold in the Northeast, we conducted
a two-phase sampling and analysis study of commercially available
fuel oil sold in the northeastern U.S., with a focus on New York State.
Changes between the two study periods and relationships between trace
element and sulfur levels were evaluated. The study found that concentrations
of mercury and other trace elements sampled during both study phases
were within typical ranges reported in the literature. Although the
average sulfur level in the samples dropped by 2 orders of magnitude
between the two phases because of new government regulations limiting
sulfur content in fuel oil after the first sampling phase, we observed
no significant relationship between sulfur content and the other trace
elements. In addition, derived emission factors for almost all trace
elements showed lower values than the tabulated US EPA AP-42 factors.
The lower mercury content measured in the samples indicate that heating
oil combustion is a much lower source of mercury emitted to the air
in the northeastern U.S. than would be inferred from an emission inventory
developed using US EPA emission factors.
A study was undertaken to identify patterns of consumer use of outdoor wood boilers or outdoor wood furnaces (technically referred to as outdoor wood-fired hydronic heaters (OWHHs)) and indoor wood stoves (IWSs) to inform the development of performance testing protocols that reflect real-life operating conditions. These devices are manually fed, and their usage protocols are a function of a number of variables, including user habits, household characteristics, and environmental factors. In this study, researchers logged the stack wall temperatures of 4 OWHH and 20 IWS units in the states of New York and Washington over two heating seasons. Stack wall temperature is an indicator of changes in combustion modes. Two algorithms were developed to identify usage modes and cold and warm start refueling events from the stack wall temperature time series. A linear correlation analysis was conducted to evaluate the effect of heat demand on usage patterns. The results and methods presented here will inform the cataloging of typical operational patterns of OWHHs and IWSs as a step in the development of performance testing procedures that represent actual in-home usage patterns.Implications: Current US regulatory programs for residential wood heating use a certification program to assess emissions and efficiency performance. Testing under this program uses a test that burns 100% of a single, standardized wood fuel charge to assess performance at different steady-state load conditions. This study assessed in-field operational patterns to determine if the current certification approach accurately characterized typical homeowner use patterns.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.