Laboratory measurements of emissions of nonmethane volatile organic compounds from biomass burning in Chinese crop residues

Abstract:

The emission factors (EFs) of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the burning of Chinese crop residue were investigated as a function of modified combustion efficiency by the laboratory experiments. The VOCs including acetonitrile, aldehydes/ketones, furan, and aromatic hydrocarbons were monitored by proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometry. Two samples, wheat straw and rape plant, were burned in dry conditions and for some experiments wheat straw was burned under wet conditions. We compared the present data to the field data reported by Kudo et al. [2014]. The agreement between the field and laboratory data was obtained for aromatics for relatively more smoldering data of dry samples but the field data were slightly underestimated compared with the laboratory data for oxygenated VOCs (OVOCs) and acetonitrile. When the EFs from the burning of wet samples were investigated, the underestimations for OVOCs and acetonitrile were improved compared with the data of dry samples. It may be a property of the burning of crop residue in the region of high temperature and high humidity that some inside parts of piled crop residue and/or the crop residue facing on the ground are still wet. But the ratios for acetic acid/glycolaldehyde was still lower than 1. This may suggest that strong loss processes of acetic acid/glycolaldehyde are present in the fresh plume.

Kudo S., H. Tanimoto, S. Inomata, S. Saito, X. L. Pan, Y. Kanaya, F. Taketani, Z. F. Wang, H. Chen, H. Dong, M. Zhang, and K. Yamaji (2014), Emissions of nonmethane volatile organic compounds from open crop residue burning in Yangtze River Delta region, China, J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 119, 7684–7698, doi: 10.1002/2013JD021044.