Author(s)

C. Le Dreff-Lorimier & M. Dufresne De Viriel

Abstract

Although residential biomass combustion is increasingly used, some recent studies present it as a non negligible source of fine particles and gaseous pollutants, which are known to have bad effects on environment and human health. Therefore, characterisation and reduction of these emissions has become a major issue for the industrial, scientific and political communities of this field. But, unlike gaseous pollutants, the evaluation of particles generated by combustion processes may be significantly influenced by sampling and measuring conditions, such as isokinetism or cooling and dilution of the fumes (if any). And, although this impact has been widely studied in case of diesel exhaust particles measurements, very few studies on this subject refer to wood combustion. However, there is currently no unified European norm to measure particles generated by residential biomass combustion appliances and national standards used by some countries (such as Germany or Norway) are based on experimental methods that are widely different from each other, the main discrepancies being in the way fumes are sampled, either in-stack or out-stack. Thus, the objective of this study is to compare the mean mass concentration of particles emitted by a residential wood stove through two different sampling and measuring methods: in-stack gravimetric measurement and out-stack gravimetric measurement (after cooling and diluting fumes in a dilution tunnel). Influence of experimental conditions such as isokinetism, position of sampling probe, type of filter or filter conditioning conditions is studied. Keywords: combustion, biomass, particles, measurements.

Keywords

combustion, biomass, particles, measurements