Particles and gaseous emissions from realistic operation of residential wood pellet heating systems

Abstract

Gaseous and particulate emissions from six residential wood pellet heating systems are determined at a realistic six day operation sequence. The study aims to investigate the total emissions from a realistic operation of the heating systems including start-up and stop phases. Five combined solar and pellet heating systems and one reference boiler without solar system with an integrated DHW preparation was tested in a laboratory at realistic operation conditions. The investigated emissions comprised carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxide (NO), total organic carbon (TOC) and particulate matter (PM2.5). In this study, the emissions are presented as accumulated total emissions from the whole six days period and the emissions from start-up and stop phases are also presented separately to evaluate the influence of the emissions from these phases on the total emissions. Emission factors of the measured systems from the six day period are between 192 and 547 mg MJ−1 for the CO emissions, between 61 and 95 mg MJ−1 for the NO, between 6 and 45 mg MJ−1 for the TOC, between 31 and 116 mg MJ−1 for the particulate matter and between 2.1 × 1013 and 4 × 1013 for the number of particles. The emissions from the start-up and stop phases are significantly high for the CO (63–95 %) and the TOC (48–93 %). NO and particles emissions are shown to dominate during stationary operation. However, 30–40 % of the particle emissions arise from the start and stop periods. It is also shown that the average emissions of CO, TOC and particles under the realistic annual conditions were higher than the limit values of two eco labels.