Estimation and characterization of gaseous pollutant emissions from agricultural crop residue combustion in industrial and household sectors of Pakistan

Muhammad Irfan, Muhammad Riaz, Muhammad Saleem Arif, Sher Muhammad Shahzad, Farhan Saleem, Naveed Ur -Rahman, Leon van den Berg, Farhat Abbas

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

76 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A long-term energy crisis has resulted in increased combustion of biomass fuel in industrial and household sectors in Pakistan. We report results of a study on the emission characteristics of rice husk, rice straw, corncobs and bagasse since they are frequently used as biomass fuel and differed remarkably in physico-chemical and combustion characteristics. Emission concentrations and emission factors were determined experimentally by burning the biomass fuel using a burning tower. Modified combustion efficiency (MCE) of rice husk, rice straw, corncobs and bagasse was >0.97 indicating that combustion was dominated by flaming mode. Emission factors of gaseous pollutants CO, CO2, NO2, NO, NOx and SO2 for rice straw were calculated to be 17.19±0.28, 1090.07±24.0, 0.89±0.03, 1.48±0.04, 3.16±0.08 and 0.38±0.03gkg-1 respectively which were significantly (p<0.05) higher compared to those from rice husk (14.05±0.18, 880.48±8.99, 0.19±0.01, 1.38±0.02, 2.31±0.04 and 0.11±0.03gkg-1), corncobs (8.63±0.12, 595.44±10.38, 0.16±0.01, 0.70±0.01, 1.23±0.02 and 0.02±0.00gkg-1) and bagasse (12.39±0.08, 937.03±9.07, 0.36±0.03, 1.44±0.02, 2.57±0.04 and 0.18±0.02gkg-1). Total emissions of CO, CO2, NO2, NO, NOx and SO2 were estimated to be 3.68, 230.51, 0.05, 0.36, 0.60 and 0.03Gg for rice husk, 33.75, 2140.35, 1.75, 2.91, 6.20 and 0.75Gg for rice straw, 1.11, 76.28, 0.02, 0.02 and 0.03Gg for corncobs and 42.12, 3185.53, 1.22, 4.90, 8.74 and 0.61Gg for bagasse respectively. Rice straw, however, had significantly (p<0.05) higher potential of gaseous pollutant emission factors. Bagasse had the highest values of total emissions followed by rice straw, rice husk and corncobs. Rice straw and bagasse, on cumulative basis, contributed more than 90% of total emissions of gaseous pollutants. Results reported in this study are important in formulating provincial and regional emission budgets of gaseous pollutants from burning of agricultural residues in Pakistan.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)189-197
Number of pages9
JournalAtmospheric Environment
Volume84
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Biomass fuel
  • Emission allocations
  • Emission factors
  • Emission inventory
  • Gaseous pollutants

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