Burning California Chaparral - an Exploratory Study of Some Common Shrubs and Their Combustion Characteristics.

1991 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 153 ◽  
Author(s):  
DR Weise ◽  
DE Ward ◽  
TE Paysen ◽  
AL Koonce

Prescribed fire is a tool used to manage vegetation in southern California. The nature and quan tity of gaseous and particulate emissions have not been described for California chaparral. A study examining carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and par ticulate matter emissions from fuel beds constructed from common chaparral shrubs was initiated. Chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum), ceanothus (Ceanothus crassifolius), manzanita (Arctostaphylos glandulosa), and scrub oak (Quercus dumosa) fuel beds were burned in December 1989, and March, May, and August, 1990. Gas and particulate matter samples were collected from 45 fires. Emission factors for CO2 and particulate matter were affected by species and month individually; month and species interacted and affected CO emission factors. Pearson's correlation coefficient and Kendall's tau indi cated that emission factors for CO and particulate matter were inversely related to combustion efficiency.

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tafadzwa Makonese ◽  
Daniel M. Masekameni ◽  
Harold J. Annegarn

Informal fixed-bed coal-burning braziers are used extensively in low-income communities of South Africa for space-heating and cooking needs. An investigation was carried out on the effects of coal moisture content and coal quality on the thermal and emissions performance of domestic coal-burning braziers in three field-procured braziers (with three different air ventilation rates), using the bottom-lit updraft (BLUD) and top-lit updraft (TLUD) ignition methods. Results showed that an increase in coal moisture content (from 2.4 wt.% to 8.6 wt.%) led to 18% and 30% decreases in fire-power when using the TLUD and BLUD methods, respectively. The combustion efficiency increased by 25% with an increase in moisture content. Measured carbon monoxide (CO) emission factors increased with an increase in moisture content, while carbon dioxide (CO2) emission factors remained unchanged. The use of A-grade coal resulted in a 49% increase in PM emissions compared with D-grade coal at high ventilation rates, despite no statistically significant differences (p > 0.05) in CO and CO2 emission factors produced between coal grades.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Bacciu ◽  
Carla Scarpa ◽  
Costantino Sirca ◽  
Spano Donatella

<p>Vegetation fires contribute to 38% to the emission of CO<sub>2</sub> into the atmosphere, against 62% caused by the combustion of fossil fuels. Further, it could approach levels of anthropogenic carbon emissions, especially in years of extreme fire activity (e.g. 2003, 2017). According to the equation first proposed by Seiler and Crutzen (1980), fire emission estimation use information on the amount of burned biomass, the emission factors associated with each specific chemical species, the burned area, and the combustion efficiency. Still, simulating emission from forest fires is affected by several errors and uncertainties, due to the different assessment approach to characterize the various parameters involved in the equation. For example, regional assessment relied on fire-activity reports from forest services, with assumptions regarding the type of vegetation burned, the characteristics of burning, and the burned area. Improvements and new advances in remote sensing, experimental measurements of emission factors, fuel consumption models, fuel load evaluation, and spatial and temporal distribution of burning are a valuable help for predicting and quantifying accurately the source and the composition of fire emissions.</p><p>With the aim to contribute to a better estimation of biomass burning emission, in this work we compared fire emission estimations using two different types of burned area products and combustion efficiency approaches in the framework of the recently developed system for modeling fire emission in Italy (Bacciu et al., 2012). This methodology combines a fire emission model (FOFEM - First Order Fire Effect Model, Reinhardt et al., 1997) with spatial and non-spatial inputs related to fire, vegetation, and weather conditions. The perimeters and burned area of selected large fires that occurred in 2017 in Italy were obtained by the former Corpo Forestale dello Stato (actually Carabinieri C.U.F.A.A.) and by the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS). The vegetation types were derived from CORINE LAND COVER (2012). For each vegetation type, fuel loading was assigned using a combination of field observations and literature data (e.g., Mitsopoulos and Dimitrakopoulos 2007; Ascoli et al., 2019). Fuel moisture conditions, influencing the combustion efficiency, were derived from the daily Canadian Fine Fuels Moisture Code (FFMC), calculated from MARS interpolated weather data (25km x 25km). The daily FFMC was then associated with the two types of fire data with the aim of group fires in function of their relative ease of ignition and flammability of fine fuel (burning conditions, from low to extreme). For the EMS fire, it was also possible to further define fire severity and thus the percentage of combusted crown through the assessed fire damage grade.</p><p>The results showed differences in the total emissions according to the fire product and the approach to estimate the combustion efficiency. Furthermore, it seems that the difference in the evaluation of severity - and therefore in the degree of combustion of the canopy- affects more than the differences in terms of area burned. Overall, the results pointed out the crucial role of appropriate fuel, fire, and weather data and maps to attain reasonable simulations of fuel consumption and smoke emissions.</p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara Strand ◽  
Brian Gullett ◽  
Shawn Urbanski ◽  
Susan O'Neill ◽  
Brian Potter ◽  
...  

Smoke measurements were made during grass and forest understorey prescribed fires as part of a comprehensive programme to understand fire and smoke behaviour. Instruments deployed on the ground, airplane and tethered aerostat platforms characterised the smoke plumes through measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH4) and particulate matter (PM), and measurements of optical properties. Distinctions were observed in aerial and ground-based measurements, with aerial measurements exhibiting smaller particle size distributions and PM emission factors, likely due to particle settling. Black carbon emission factors were similar for both burns and were highest during the initial flaming phase. On average, the particles from the forest fire were less light absorbing than those from the grass fires due to the longer duration of smouldering combustion in the forest biomass. CO and CH4 emission factors were over twice as high for the forest burn than for the grass burn, corresponding with a lower modified combustion efficiency and greater smouldering combustion. This dataset reveals the evolution of smoke emissions from two different commonly burned fuel types and demonstrates the complexity of emission factors.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick A. Barker ◽  
Grant Allen ◽  
Thomas Bannan ◽  
Archit Mehra ◽  
Keith N. Bower ◽  
...  

Abstract. Airborne sampling of methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and nitrous oxide (N2O) mole fractions was conducted during field campaigns targeting fires over Senegal in February and March 2017, and Uganda in January 2019. The majority of fire plumes sampled were close to, or directly over burning vegetation, with the exception of two longer-range flights over the West African Atlantic seaboard, (100–300 km from source) where the continental outflow of biomass burning emissions from a wider area of West Africa was sampled. Fire Emission Factors (EFs) and modified combustion efficiencies (MCEs) were estimated from the enhancements in measured mole fractions. For the Senegalese fires, mean EFs and corresponding one-standard deviation variabilities, in units of g per kg of dry fuel were 1.8 (± 0.06) for CH4, 1633 (± 56.4) for CO2 and 679 (± 1.6) for CO, with a mean MCE of 0.94 (± 0.005). For the Ugandan fires, mean EFs (in units of g kg−1) were 3.1 (± 0.1) for CH4, 1610 (± 54.9) for CO2 and 78 (± 1.9) for CO, with a mean modified combustion efficiency of 0.93 (± 0.004). A mean N2O EF of 0.08 (± 0.002) g kg−1 is also reported for one flight over Uganda; issues with temperature control of the instrument optical bench prevented N2O EFs from being obtained for other flights over Uganda. This study has provided new datasets of African biomass burning EFs and MCEs for two distinct study regions, in which both have been studied little by aircraft measurement previously. These results highlight the important intracontinental variability of biomass burning trace gas emissions, and can be used to better constrain future biomass burning emission budgets. More generally, these results highlight the importance of regional and fuel-type variability when attempting to spatially scale biomass burning emissions. Further work to constrain EFs at more local scales and for more specific (and quantifiable) fuel types will serve to improve global estimates of biomass burning emissions of climate-relevant gases.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (23) ◽  
pp. 15443-15459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick A. Barker ◽  
Grant Allen ◽  
Martin Gallagher ◽  
Joseph R. Pitt ◽  
Rebecca E. Fisher ◽  
...  

Abstract. Airborne sampling of methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and nitrous oxide (N2O) mole fractions was conducted during field campaigns targeting fires over Senegal in February and March 2017 and Uganda in January 2019. The majority of fire plumes sampled were close to or directly over burning vegetation, with the exception of two longer-range flights over the West African Atlantic seaboard (100–300 km from source), where the continental outflow of biomass burning emissions from a wider area of West Africa was sampled. Fire emission factors (EFs) and modified combustion efficiencies (MCEs) were estimated from the enhancements in measured mole fractions. For the Senegalese fires, mean EFs and corresponding uncertainties in units of gram per kilogram of dry fuel were 1.8±0.19 for CH4, 1633±171.4 for CO2, and 67±7.4 for CO, with a mean MCE of 0.94±0.005. For the Ugandan fires, mean EFs were 3.1±0.35 for CH4, 1610±169.7 for CO2, and 78±8.9 for CO, with a mean modified combustion efficiency of 0.93±0.004. A mean N2O EF of 0.08±0.002 g kg−1 is also reported for one flight over Uganda; issues with temperature control of the instrument optical bench prevented N2O EFs from being obtained for other flights over Uganda. This study has provided new datasets of African biomass burning EFs and MCEs for two distinct study regions, in which both have been studied little by aircraft measurement previously. These results highlight the important intracontinental variability of biomass burning trace gas emissions and can be used to better constrain future biomass burning emission budgets. More generally, these results highlight the importance of regional and fuel-type variability when attempting to spatially scale biomass burning emissions. Further work to constrain EFs at more local scales and for more specific (and quantifiable) fuel types will serve to improve global estimates of biomass burning emissions of climate-relevant gases.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1427-1439 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Janhäll ◽  
M. O. Andreae ◽  
U. Pöschl

Abstract. Aerosol emissions from vegetation fires have a large impact on air quality and climate. In this study, we use published experimental data and different fitting procedures to derive dynamic particle number and mass emission factors (EFPN, EFPM) related to the fuel type, burning conditions and the mass of dry fuel burned, as well as characteristic CO-referenced emission ratios (PN/CO, PM/CO). Moreover, we explore and characterize the variability of the particle size distribution of fresh smoke, which is typically dominated by a lognormal accumulation mode with count median diameter around 120 nm (depending on age, fuel and combustion efficiency), and its effect on the relationship between particle number and mass emission factors. For the particle number emission factor of vegetation fires, we found no dependence on fuel type and obtained the following parameterization as a function of modified combustion efficiency (MCE): EFPN=34×1015×(1−MCE) kg−1±1015 kg−1 with regard to dry fuel mass (d.m.). For the fine particle mass emission factors (EFPM) we obtained (86–85×MCE) g kg−1±3 g kg−1 as an average for all investigated fires; (93–90×MCE) g kg−1±4 g kg−1 for forest; (67–65×MCE) g kg−1±2 g kg−1 for savanna; (63–62×MCE) g kg−1±1 g kg−1 for grass. For the PN/CO emission ratio we obtained an average of (34±16) cm−3 ppb−1 exhibiting no systematic dependence on fuel type or combustion efficiency. The average PM/CO emission ratios were (0.09±0.04) g g−1 for all investigated fires; (0.13±0.05) g g−1 for forest; (0.08±0.03) g g−1 for savanna; and (0.07±0.03) g g−1 for grass. The results are consistent with each other, given that particles from forest fires are on average larger than those from savanna and grass fires. This assumption and the above parameterizations represent the current state of knowledge, but they are based on a rather limited amount of experimental data which should be complemented by further measurements. Nevertheless, the presented parameterizations appear sufficiently robust for exploring the influence of vegetation fires on aerosol particle number and mass concentrations in regional and global model studies.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 190
Author(s):  
William Hicks ◽  
Sean Beevers ◽  
Anja H. Tremper ◽  
Gregor Stewart ◽  
Max Priestman ◽  
...  

This research quantifies current sources of non-exhaust particulate matter traffic emissions in London using simultaneous, highly time-resolved, atmospheric particulate matter mass and chemical composition measurements. The measurement campaign ran at Marylebone Road (roadside) and Honor Oak Park (background) urban monitoring sites over a 12-month period between 1 September 2019 and 31 August 2020. The measurement data were used to determine the traffic increment (roadside–background) and covered a range of meteorological conditions, seasons, and driving styles, as well as the influence of the COVID-19 “lockdown” on non-exhaust concentrations. Non-exhaust particulate matter (PM)10 concentrations were calculated using chemical tracer scaling factors for brake wear (barium), tyre wear (zinc), and resuspension (silicon) and as average vehicle fleet non-exhaust emission factors, using a CO2 “dilution approach”. The effect of lockdown, which saw a 32% reduction in traffic volume and a 15% increase in average speed on Marylebone Road, resulted in lower PM10 and PM2.5 traffic increments and brake wear concentrations but similar tyre and resuspension concentrations, confirming that factors that determine non-exhaust emissions are complex. Brake wear was found to be the highest average non-exhaust emission source. In addition, results indicate that non-exhaust emission factors were dependent upon speed and road surface wetness conditions. Further statistical analysis incorporating a wider variability in vehicle mix, speeds, and meteorological conditions, as well as advanced source apportionment of the PM measurement data, were undertaken to enhance our understanding of these important vehicle sources.


Author(s):  
Camille Noblet ◽  
Jean-Luc Besombes ◽  
Marie Lemire ◽  
Mathieu Pin ◽  
Jean-Luc Jaffrezo ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Theodoros C. Zannis ◽  
Dimitrios T. Hountalas ◽  
Elias A. Yfantis ◽  
Roussos G. Papagiannakis ◽  
Yiannis A. Levendis

Increasing the in-cylinder oxygen availability of diesel engines is an effective method to improve combustion efficiency and to reduce particulate emissions. Past work on oxygen-enrichment of the intake air, revealed a large decrease of ignition delay, a remarkable decrease of soot emissions as well as reduction of CO and unburned hydrocarbon (HC) emissions while, brake specific fuel consumption (bsfc) remained unaffected or even improved. Moreover, experiments conducted in the past by authors revealed that oxygen-enrichment of the intake air (from 21% to 25% oxygen mole fraction) under high fuelling rates resulted to an increase of brake power output by 10%. However, a considerable increase of NOx emissions was recorded. This manuscript, presents the results of a theoretical investigation that examines the effect of oxygen enrichment of intake air, up to 30%v/v, on the local combustion characteristics, soot and NO concentrations under the following two in-cylinder mixing conditions: (1) lean in-cylinder average fuel/oxygen equivalence ratio (constant fuelling rate) and (2) constant in-cylinder average fuel/oxygen equivalence ratio (increased fuelling rate). A phenomenological engine simulation model is used to shed light into the influence of the oxygen content of combustion air on the distribution of combustion parameters, soot and nitric oxide inside the fuel jet, in all cases considered. Simulations were made for a naturally aspirated single-cylinder DI diesel engine “Lister LV1” at 2500 rpm and at various engine loads. The outcome of this theoretical investigation was contrasted with published experimental findings.


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