Emission Factor from Small Scale Tropical Peat Combustion

Abstract

Peatfire in Indonesia recently had become an important issue regarding its global warming impact of green house gases emitted. Emission factor is one of important variables to determine total emission of carbon released by peatfire. But currently there were only a few studies about Indonesian peat fire emission factors. The previous studies of Indonesian peat fire emission factor reported the results from a very limited number of samples and during smoldering combustion stages only. Therefore this study attempts to quantify carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) emission factors from laboratory peat combustion based on higher number of samples and taken both of combustion stages (flaming and smoldering) into consideration. Peats were sampled from five different districts in Pontianak, West Kalimantan. Ultimate analysis showed that pure peat composed of relatively high carbon content (52.85 – 59.43% dry basis). Laboratory experiments were carried out by burning small amout of peats in a mini furnace and measuring their CO2 and CH4 emission concentration during flaming and smoldering. CO2, CO and CH4 average emission factors and their related average MCE for flaming were found to be 2,088 ± 21 g/kg (n = 17), 3.104 ± 7.173 g/kg (n = 17), 0.143 ± 0.132 g/kg (n = 17) and 0.998 ± 0.005 (n = 17), respectively, while for smoldering were 1,831 ± 131 g/kg (n = 17), 138 ± 72 g/kg (n = 17), 17 ± 12 g/kg (n = 17) and 0.894 ± 0.055 g/kg (n = 17), respectively. This emission factors based on the laboratory combustion experiment can be conveniently used to estimate CO2 and CH4 emission from Indonesian peat fire. Equation models to correlate between MCE and emission factors for both flaming and smoldering were developed. MCE and CO2 emission factor during flaming was relatively higher than smoldering. On the contrary, CO and CH4 emission factors were relatively smaller during flaming than smoldering.