| Abstract Title: | Uncontrolled burning biomass activities and determination of emissions factors |
| Presenter Name: | Dr Alberto Escrig |
| Co-authors: | Dr Irina Celades Dr Vicenta Sanfelix Dr Raul Moliner Dr Salvador Gomar |
| Company/Organisation: | Instituto de Tecnologia Cerámica |
| Country: | Spain |
Abstract Information :
The latest inventories of PM emissions conducted by the European Commission (IAASA), in countries of the Mediterranean basin such as Spain, establish the need to reduce PM2.5 emissions by more than 50% by 2030. According to these inventories, the activity that has the greatest potential to be reduced is the open burn of agro-forest wastes.
Currently, the methodologies followed to quantify these emissions are based on satellite image analysis and/or the use of internationally accepted emission factors. The results obtained by the image analysis entail a high uncertainty since it is difficult to evaluate the veracity of the estimated information against the real one. Regarding the direct use of emission factors must be cautious since it is necessary to perform an analysis on its representativeness in the studied scenarios.
In the absence of appropriate tools, the ITC has developed a measurement model based on "Reverse Dispersion Modeling (RDM)" which consists of the numerical integration of the advection-diffusion equation. It also considers the convection currents in the surface layer (the lower layer of the planetary boundary layer), resulting from the high temperatures reached during the open burn process, where there are large gradients of speed and potential temperature. With the method developed, it is possible to reproduce faithfully the geometry of the source.
By designing appropriate measurement campaigns and using the developed method, it has been possible to obtain emission factors associated with the uncontrolled burning of olive, almond and orange prunings. The emission factors obtained are in the range of 50 - 500 g/t depending on different characteristics of the agro-forest wastes such as the nature and humidity, with an average emission of 220 g/t.
A comparison was made among the results obtained from the present study and the correspondent emission factors from different sources such as EPA, EMEP/EEA and GAINS.
Significant differences have been found between the experimental PM2.5 emissions factors and those obtain with the theoretical ones. The paper will discuss in more detail some explanations regarding these differences and propose future actions to improve current data.
