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Publications in Scientific Journals:

A. Caseiro, H. Bauer, C. Schmidl, C. Pio, H. Puxbaum:
"Wood burning impact on PM10 in three Austrian regions";
Atmospheric Environment, 43 (2009), 2186 - 2195.



English abstract:
Anhydrosugars (levoglucosan, mannosan and galactosan) were investigated during one year in three
Austrian regions at three types of sites (city-heavy traffic-impacted, city-residential and background) in
order to assess the magnitude of the contribution of wood smoke to the particulate matter load and its
organic fraction. The annually averaged concentrations of levoglucosan ranged from 0.12 to 0.48 mgm 3.
The levoglucosan concentration exhibited a strong annual cycle with higher concentrations in the cold
season. The minor anhydrosugars had a similar annual trend, but their concentrations were lower by
a factor of about 5 and about 25 in the cold season for mannosan and galactosan, respectively. Levoglucosan
concentrations were higher at the inner-urban as compared to rural sites. The contribution of
wood smoke to organic carbon and PM10 levels was calculated using a constant ratio of levoglucosan and
OC, respectively PM10 as derived for fire wood typical for Alpine European regions [Schmidl, C., Marr, I.L.,
Caseiro, A.e, Kotianova´ , P., Berner, A., Bauer, H., Kasper-Giebl, A., Puxbaum, H., 2008a. Chemical characterisation
of fine particle emissions from wood stove combustion of common woods growing in mid-
European Alpine regions. Atmospheric Environment 42, 126-141]. The estimated contribution of wood
smoke-OC to the OC of PM10 ranged from one third to more than half in the cold season with higher
contributions up to 70% in winter (December, January and February) in the smaller cities and the rural
background. This indicates, that wood smoke is the predominant source of organic material at rural and
small urban sites in central Europe. Consistently, wood smoke was an important contributor to PM10
during the cold season, with contributions of around 10% in the Vienna larger region and around 20% at
rural sites in the densely forested regions of Salzburg and Styria during the winter months. In those
regions residential sites exhibited highest relative wood smoke contents in PM10 during autumn
(September till November), indicating the use of wood stoves for auxiliary heating in the transition of
warm to cold season. Using the relationships between the different anhydrosugars the combustion of
softwood was found to be dominant for the wood smoke occurrence in ambient air at the investigated
sites. Potassium, a commonly used tracer for biomass burning, correlated well to levoglucosan, with
a mass ratio of around 0.80 in the cold season.

Keywords:
PM10; Levoglucosan; Wood burning; Austria


"Official" electronic version of the publication (accessed through its Digital Object Identifier - DOI)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2009.01.012


Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.