Abstract
Climate change causes more frequent and destructive wildfires even transforming them into megafire. Moreover, all biomass fires produce emissions of carbon compounds in the form of soot to the atmosphere with a significant impact on the environment and human health. Indeed, the soot is causing the formation of PAHs from (a) the high temperature thermal alteration of natural product precursors in the source organic matter and (b) the recombination of molecular fragments in the smoke. However, these molecules are known to have carcinogenic effects on human health. It is therefore interesting to quantify the 16 PAHs concentration extracted from soot emitted in open diffusion flame of biomass combustion. To achieve this objective, an analytical method developed for the study of kerosene combustion has been adapted for soot from biomass. This new method allowed to quantify the 16 PAHs defined as priority pollutants by the US EPA for their carcinogenic mutagenic effect and on human health.
Highlights
Climate change is increasing the risk of wildfires in temperate biomes, with more extreme landscape drying combined with extreme weather events leading to increased occurrence of destructive fires [1]
Black carbon strongly absorbs solar radiation and atmospheric particulate matter (PM) acts as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), which are important for the radiation balance and the hydrological cycle [5]
The objective of this study is to characterize the Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) contained in the soot emitted in wildland fires conditions
Summary
Atmosphere 2021, 12, 965. https://Climate change is increasing the risk of wildfires in temperate biomes, with more extreme landscape drying combined with extreme weather events leading to increased occurrence of destructive fires [1]. The impact of Mediterranean wildfires involves several sectors entailing environmental, human, and economic losses. Wildfires emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that will contribute to warm the planet well into the future. They damage forests that would otherwise remove CO2 from the air and they inject soot and other aerosols into the atmosphere, with complex effects on warming and cooling. Wildfires emit approximately 34% of total atmospheric soot mass [3] and the carbon released from fires during combustion alters the global carbon balance [4]. Black carbon strongly absorbs solar radiation and atmospheric particulate matter (PM) acts as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), which are important for the radiation balance and the hydrological cycle [5]
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