Emission factor estimates of cereal waste burning in Spain

• Published in: Atmospheric environment (1994) Vol. 34; no. 19; pp. 3183 - 3193
• Main Authors: Ortiz de Zárate, I., Ezcurra, A., Lacaux, J.P., Van Dinh, Pham
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 2000
• Subjects: Biomass burning; Cereal waste in Spain; Combustion chamber experiment; Field burning; Gases and particle emissions; Spain; Spain; Combustion chamber experiment; Gases and particle emissions; Cereal waste in Spain; Biomass burning; Field burning
• DOI: 10.1016/S1352-2310(99)00254-X
• ISSN: 1352-2310

Every year more than 5 million ha of cereal fields are affected by fires in order to eliminate cereal waste in Spain. The characteristics of this type of fire with intense flames are similar to those of the African dry savanna heading fires. This paper surveys the atmospheric emission caused by this process by combining results of field and combustion chamber experiments. Combustion chamber experiments show that during the flaming phase 88% of the fire exposed carbon is converted into CO 2 and during the smoldering phase this percentage changes to 74%. These combustion chamber experiments also show that the soluble part of the aerosols emitted during the course of fires only represent 3% of the total particulate matter (TPM) produced, being the ions K + and CI − the predominant ones. The cereal waste fire process can be represented by an arithmetic combination that takes into account the amounts of mass burned during the two phases of the fire: 0.90 flaming +0.10 smoldering. Emission factor estimates from field burning experiment are 13±7 g TPM kg −1(dm) and 2.8±0.2 g NO x kg −1 (dm). Finally, we obtain average emissions of 80–130 Gg TPM, 17–28 Gg NO x , 210–350 Gg CO and 8–14 Tg CO 2 in Spain. These emissions represent nearly 25% of the total NO x and 50% of the total CO 2 emissions by other pollution sources during the burning period in Spain.