Some Aspects of the Mechanism of Formation of Smoke from the Combustion of Wood

Abstract

This paper is concerned with an investigation of the formation of soot from the combustion of some of the primary pyrolysis products formed during pine wood combustion. Comparisons are made between the combustion products of model compounds, furfural for cellulose and eugenol and anisole to represent lignin (and n-decane for comparison) with the smoke emissions from the previously studied combustion of pine wood. These compounds were burned in a diffusion flame burner, and the appearance and composition of the resulting particulate and the adsorbed polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) precursors were studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), mass spectrometry and pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS). The reactions leading to soot formation were modeled. It was concluded that wood soot formation proceeded via pyrolytic breakdown followed by a mechanism based on HACA (H-abstraction−C 2 H 2addition) reactions with the participation of cyclopentadienyl intermediates, while eugenol soot originated predominantly through the CPDyl route. The formation of furfural soot is mainly via HACA.

PAH emissions from an African cookstove

“…Interestingly the PAH products from the charcoal are of a much lower concentration than for firewood, which is observed experimentally. The data for CH4, CO and NOx emissions obtained are comparable with previous experimental data [26].…”

Nickel Metal–Organic Framework Derived Hierarchically Mesoporous Nickel Phosphate toward Smoke Suppression and Mechanical Enhancement of Intumescent Flame Retardant Wood Fiber/Poly(lactic acid) Composites

“…35 However, wood fiber with the main components as cellulose and lignin, could form smoke via different routes during the combustion. 36 The addition of APP into W-PLA effectively decreased the heat release rate while at the same time endowed an increased smoke production of the composites. As shown in Figure 5c, the peak smoke production rate decreased with the increasing loading amount of Ni-PO.…”

Technical note: Pyrolysis principles explain time-resolved organic aerosol release from biomass burning

“…The sharing of energy between water evaporation and pyrolysis shifts product yields towards char (Beaumont and Schwob, 1984;Peters and Bruch, 2003;Di Blasi et al, 2000) and reduces the reaction temperature. The effect of reaction temperature on yield reduction is evident in the change in yield between 400 and 500 • C where more char, less gases, and less PyOM were produced at the lower temperature.…”