Abstract
Designs of "improved" stoves are introduced recently to benefit the solid fuel consumption of cooking activities in developing countries, but the uncertainties concerning the combustion processes and particulate emissions remain poorly characterized. To help understand this, combustion in three examples of "improved" African cookstoves was investigated in the laboratory. A typical European heating stove was included for comparison purpose. Detailed aerosol emissions were studied in real-time with an Aerosol Mass Spectrometer and Single Particle Soot Photometer, to explore interactions between black carbon (BC) and organic carbon aerosols, which were parametrized according to modified combustion efficiency (MCE), a common metric used within the atmospheric emission community. Greater than 50% of the total organic matter (OM) was found in BC-containing particles when MCE was >0.95 for dry oak and coal fuels, whereas at lower MCE, over 80% of the total OM for most of the fuels existed in particles without detectable BC. When the OM mass fraction of total particulate matter (PM1) > 0.9, the mass ratio of OM to refractory BC in BC-containing particles was about 2-3, but only ∼0.8 when OM mass fraction <0.9. These findings are not currently included in models and such information should be considered in the future emission scenarios.
Highlights
black carbon (BC) and inorganic particle components peaked at high modified combustion efficiency (MCE) and temperature, and the MCE dropped each time the fuel refilled as more charcoal accumulated
While m/z 44 is widely used as an indicator of secondary or aged organic matter (OM), this shows that primary OM from wood burning exhibits a significant range of f44.27,32 For all the cookstoves tested, negative correlation between f44 and MCE is shown in Figure 2, consistent with the findings of Weimer et al.[9]
Positive correlations between f44 and MCE from log and pine combustion were observed in a multifuel heating stove, which may be due to the dominance of hydrocarbon fragments at high MCE
Summary
Particulate emissions from the combustion of solid fuel, which is widely used for cooking and heating in developing countries, have severe impacts on human health, air quality, and climate.[1−4] For the year 2010, global burden of disease estimates showed that exposure to household air pollution from cooking resulted in approximately 4 million premature deaths,[5] with the most recent estimates from WHO reporting 4.3 million death for 2012.6 Household air pollution is a substantial contributor to outdoor air pollution-related deaths due to emissions into the ambient environment, responsible for around 0.4 million deaths (12%) of the total from ambient air pollution.[7]. The relationship between the emissions from solid fuel combustion and combustion efficiency has been shown in a few studies, but many of the tests were conducted on more idealized and tightly constrained combustion conditions and were unable to replicate the diversity of emissions.[10,12,32]
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