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C. Goncalves, A. Alves, M. Evtyugina, F. Mirante, C. Pio, A. Caseiro, C. Schmidl, H. Bauer, F. Carvalho:
"Characterisation of PM10 emissions from woodstove combustion of common woods grown in Portugal";
Atmospheric Environment, 44 (2010), 4474 - 4480.

The radiative forcing of climate by atmospheric aerosols is believed to be similar in magnitude, but opposite in sign, to the global warming caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases (Chung and Seinfeld, 2002; Danny and Kaufmann, 2002). Nowadays fine particles and the associated organic compounds are also reason for concern because of their effects in human health (Naeher et al., 2007). In Europe, emissions from biomass combustion sources can contribute up to 80% of the atmospheric aerosol mass during winter (Puxbaum et al., 2007). In Portugal, it was estimated that around 390,000 ton year 1 of wood are burned in fireplaces (Dias, 2002). Wood burning results in high levels of toxic air pollutants, perturbing the atmospheric chemistry (Levine, 2003). In Mediterranean countries, data on detailed emission factors from biomass burning are mostly inexistent. Emission inventories and source apportionment, photochemistry and climate change models, all use default values obtained for American (e.g. Fine et al., 2004a,b), Alpine (Schmidl et al., 2008a), or Scandinavian (Hedberg et al., 2002; Johansson et al., 2004) biofuel combustion, uncommon in Southern Europe. Thus, it is desirable to use more specific locally available data. This research is focused on meeting the need for detailed characterisation of emission profiles of wood species growing in Portugal, in order to contribute with new data to source apportionment and information for an improved emission inventory
development and to better understand the impact of these sources on human health, regional air quality and climate change.

Biomass burning, Woodstove, PM10, Emissions, Organic tracers, GC-MS

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2010.07.026