Characterisation of PM10 emissions from woodstove combustion of common woods grown in Portugal

Organic compounds in PM2.5 emitted from fireplace and woodstove combustion of typical Portuguese wood species

“…McDonald et al (2000) obtained an OC/EC ratio of 3.9 for softwood and 7.9 for hardwood in a woodstove. Gonçalves et al (2010) reported ratios ranging from 0.9 for maritime pine PM 10 emissions to 4.4 for the smoke of cork oak emitted from the combustion in a "chimney type" stove. Higher OC/EC ratios have been reported for lowtemperature combustion in conventional fireplaces and stoves, confirming that particulate matter from these appliances are dominated by OC (Bølling et al, 2009), while higher EC mass fractions in smoke particles from the combustion of woody biomass in more efficient modern small scale units (modern logwood stoves with secondary air and automated air supply, and pellet stoves) contributed to lower OC/EC ratios, sometimes comparable to those from vehicular emissions.…”

“…2). The carbon content of particle emissions from the combustion of Portuguese woods was compared with that determined by Fine et al (2001Fine et al ( , 2002Fine et al ( , 2004b and by Gonçalves et al (2010) in Table 2. The OC values obtained by Fine et al (2002) for the fireplace combustion of selected American wood species are about two times higher than those obtained in our study.…”

“…It should be noted that the carbonaceous content obtained from thermaleoptical technique does not account for associated O, H, N, and other elements, from the measured C mass concentrations attributed to OC. To estimate the organic matter content in particulate matter, the OC measurements have to be multiplied by a factor ranging from 1.4 to 2 (Alves et al, 2011;Gonçalves et al, 2010). Thus, up to 90% of the PM 2.5 in the wood smoke is constituted by organic matter.…”

“…The objectives of this new investigation are to extend to eight the number of biomass fuels studied and try to understand the effects of traditional Portuguese burning appliances (a brick open fireplace versus a cast iron woodstove) and combustion conditions on emissions. In addition to a larger number of wood species involved in the present study in comparison to that in Gonçalves et al (2010), the two major differences between both investigations are related to the use of burning appliances with distinct characteristics ("chimney type" stove in Austria with high efficiency versus traditional Portuguese equipments with lower efficiency) and sampling of particulate matter with distinct aerodynamic diameters (PM 10 for the Austrian stove, PM 2.5 for the Portuguese appliances).…”

“…To overcome the lack of information, a series of source tests were made to evaluate the chemical composition of particulate matter (PM 10 ) emissions from the woodstove combustion of four prevalent Portuguese species of wood: Pinus pinaster, Eucalyptus globulus, Quercus suber and Acacia longifolia. The burning tests were carried out at the combustion facility of the Vienna University of Technology, on a highly efficient "chimney type" log woodstove and the results were published by Gonçalves et al (2010). The objectives of this new investigation are to extend to eight the number of biomass fuels studied and try to understand the effects of traditional Portuguese burning appliances (a brick open fireplace versus a cast iron woodstove) and combustion conditions on emissions.…”