Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Residential Wood Burning: A Major Source
of Fine Particulate Matter in Alpine Valleys
in Central Europe
Hanna Herich and Christoph Hueglin
Abstract Residential wood burning is one of the important sources of ambient
particulate matter (PM) in many European regions. Besides total PM, residential
wood burning is at many locations an important source of other air pollutants such
as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), benzene, particulate organic carbon
(OC), and black carbon (BC), especially in regions such as the Alpine region, where
wood fuel is, on one hand, traditionally used for domestic heating during the cold
season in small stoves and, on the other hand, meteorological conditions during
winter are often favourable for accumulation of wood smoke in a shallow boundary
layer. As a consequence, wood burning in the Alpine region can be the dominating
source of PM, OC, and BC during the cold season. This is true for both larger cities
and small villages in rural areas. The absolute contribution of wood burning
emissions to particulate air pollutants tends in rural environments to be even larger
than in urban areas. This chapter gives an overview about the results of studies on
ambient particulate pollutants from residential wood burning in the Alpine region.
Keywords Black carbon, Organic carbon, Particulate matter, Residential wood
burning
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
1.1 Fine Particulate Matter From Wood Burning . . . . . . .................................. 125
1.2 Volumes of Wood Fuel and Used Appliances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
2 Methods for Quantification of Source Impacts ............................................ 126
2.1 Emission Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
2.2 Emission Factors: Examples for Austria, Germany and Switzerland . . . . ........... 127
2.3 PM Source Apportionment Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
