Organic compounds in biomass smoke from residential wood combustion: Emissions characterization at a continental scale

Abstract

[1] Wood smoke in the atmosphere often accounts for 20-30% of the ambient fineparticle concentrations. In communities where wood is burned for home heating, wood smoke can at times contribute the majority of the atmospheric fine-particle burden. Chemical mass balance receptor models that use organic compounds as tracers can be used to determine the contributions of different emission sources, including wood smoke, to atmospheric fine-particle samples. In order for organic chemical tracer techniques to be applied to communities across the United States, differences in wood smoke composition that arise from differences in the type of wood burned in various regions must be understood. A continental-scale accounting of particulate organic compound emissions from residential wood combustion has been constructed which helps to quantify the regional differences in wood smoke composition that exist between different parts of the United States. Data from a series of source tests conducted on 22 North American wood species have been used to assemble a national inventory of emissions for more than 250 individual organic compounds that are released from wood combustion in fireplaces and wood stoves in the United States. The emission rates of important wood smoke markers, such as levoglucosan, certain substituted syringols and guaiacols, and phytosterols vary greatly with wood type and combustor type. These differences at the level of individual wood type and combustion conditions translate into regional differences in the aggregate composition of ambient wood smoke. By weighting the source test results in proportion to the availability of firewood from specific tree species and the quantities of wood burned in each locale, it is possible to investigate systematic differences that exist between wood smokes from different regions of North America. The relative abundance of 10 major wood smoke components averaged over the emissions inventory in different regions of the United States is computed and then used to illustrate the extent to which wood smoke composition differs from region to region in North America.

Carbonaceous aerosols in Norwegian urban areas

“…The K + /levoglucosan ratio 0.32 is in the upper range of that reported by Fine et al (2001Fine et al ( , 2002aFine et al ( , 2002bFine et al ( , 2004Schauer et al (2001) and Schmidl (2008) for test burns of various tree types, ranging from 0.02-0.9, but equal to ambient observations reported for Christchurch (0.3) and Auckland (0.3) (New Zealand), which are cities considerably influenced by residential wood burning, as reported by Wang et al (2006). A K + /levoglucosan ratio of 0.3 was also reported during wild fire events in the Amazonas (Graham et al, 2002).…”

“…A wide range of levoglucosan-to-OC emission ratios has been reported for various types of softwood and hardwood (Fine et al, 2001(Fine et al, , 2002a(Fine et al, , 2002b(Fine et al, , 2004Mazzolini et al, 2007;Simoneit et al, 1999), typically for US tree types, using US appliances. For example, Fine et al (2002b) found a levoglucosan-to-OC emission ratio of 14±2% (PM 2.5 ) for ten regions covering the entire US, when normalizing with respect to local tree types and appliances used.…”

“…For example, Fine et al (2002b) found a levoglucosan-to-OC emission ratio of 14±2% (PM 2.5 ) for ten regions covering the entire US, when normalizing with respect to local tree types and appliances used. Emission ratios for European tree types are scarce; Puxbaum et al (2007) reported a levoglucosan-to-OC-ratio (PM 10 ) of 14 %, based on test burns of beech (7.9%) and spruce (20.6%) indigenous to Austria, Hedberg et al (2006) found a levoglucosan to PM 10 ratio of 0.3% to 22% for wood and pellet boilers in Sweden, and Schmidl et al (2008) found ratios between 8% and 30% (PM 10 ) for Austrian wood stoves.…”

Review of Recent Advances in Detection of Organic Markers in Fine Particulate Matter and Their Use for Source Apportionment

“…A complete set of emission factors of the prevalent chemical species found in wood smoke throughout the United States has been provided. 38,39 Because these wood samples were collected in direct emissions from residential fireplaces, the longterm atmospheric stability of some of these products remains to be evaluated.…”

Source Apportionment of Daily Fine Particulate Matter at Jefferson Street, Atlanta, GA, during Summer and Winter

“…The seven source profiles applied here include emissions from diesel-powered vehicles, 30 combined catalyst-and noncatalyst-equipped gasoline-powered vehicles, 31 wood combustion, 32 paved road dust, 33 meat cooking, 34 vegetative detritus, 6 and natural gas combustion 7 . Two of the source profiles, including wood combustion and paved road dust, were reconstructed by Zheng et al 17 specially for the southeastern United States.…”