A Review on Particle Emissions from Small Scale Biomass Combustion

Combustion of biomass as fuels in small scale heating appliances is a common source of particle emissions. Majority of the particles is less than 1 µm (micrometer) and emitted directly to the atmosphere from the combustion devices. There is a growing concern worldwide about particle emissions from biomass combustion. Types of particles, formation mechanisms, their characteristics and available measurement techniques are discussed in this paper. Particle emission characteristics on small scale biomass combustion have also been discussed. The review findings have been summarized into three categories to show how combustion appliances and fuel affect on mass concentrations, number concentrations, corresponding size distributions and chemical compositions. Mass concentrations of particles in the flue gas from small scale combustion appliances reported in the literature to be in the range of 7-67 mg/Nm3, while particle number concentrations in the range of 0.8 x 107- 5.5 x 109 particles/cm3. The dominating chemical compositions of the particle emissions in the fine mode were potassium fraction followed by sulphur, chlorine and sodium and consequently dominating chemical compounds were K2SO4 (potassium sulphate) and KCl (potassium chloride). From the literature it is clear that particle emissions from biomass combustion are closely related not only to the fuel properties but also to the combustion conditions and combustion appliances.

Jaar van publicatie:2012

Trefwoorden:Particle formation, measurement techniques, mass/number concentrations, size distributions