Haze emissions from smouldering peat: The roles of inorganic content and bulk density

Hu, Yuqi; Cui, Wuquan; Rein, Guillermo

doi:10.1016/j.firesaf.2019.102940

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…It is noted that air flux ( Pironi et al, 2009 , 2011 ; Rashwan et al, 2016 ; Zanoni et al, 2019a , 2019b ), bed bulk density ( Hu et al, 2020 ; Huang and Rein, 2017 ; Krause et al, 2006 ; Prat-Guitart et al, 2016 ) and wall heat loss/insulation ( Lin and Huang, 2021 ; Rashwan et al, 2021c , 2021d ; Yermán, 2016 ) have all been considered with respect to their influence on the smouldering reaction. However, the new cooling optimisations reveal how key parameters quantitatively influence the overall efficiency and effectiveness of commercial smouldering systems beyond the smouldering phase.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding, controlling and optimising the cooling of waste thermal treatment beds including STARx Hottpads

et al. 2022

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STARx (Self-sustaining Treatment for Active Remediation ex situ) is a thermal treatment strategy for contaminated soils and organic wastes. Key to this technology is that organics are embedded in porous matrix beds (e.g. sand). STARx induces a self-sustaining smouldering combustion front that traverses the bed, burning away the embedded contaminants/wastes. The time and cost effectiveness of this technology is largely dictated by the time required for cooling of the hot, clean, porous matrix bed that remains after treatment. This study is the first to explore the cooling of these beds. A suite of novel simulations investigated the influence of key parameters on bed-cooling time. The results reveal that cooling time decreased nearly linearly with decreases of volume-averaged bed temperature and bed bulk density. Increased injection air fluxes led to the non-linear decrease of cooling time. Also, cooling time was negatively impacted by bed temperature inhomogeneity, which influenced preferential air flow through cooler regions of the bed, bypassing hotter regions. From these results, using lower bulk density bed materials, increased air fluxes and enhancing wall insulation to improve bed temperature homogeneity were identified as system optimisations to reduce cooling times. While the aim of this research is to improve the STARx cooling process, the results are also highly applicable to many similar engineering systems that involve hot porous bed cooling.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding, controlling and optimising the cooling of waste thermal treatment beds including STARx Hottpads

et al. 2022

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“…2. From review of these studies, Fouriertransform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is the most commonly used technique for measuring gas emissions (Hu et al 2019a(Hu et al , 2019bWatson et al 2019;Hu et al 2020). The basic principle of FTIR spectroscopy uses IR radiation passing through the sampling gas to produce spectrums that show unique molecular absorptions and transmissions (Smith 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory benchmark of low-cost portable gas and particle analysers at the source of smouldering wildfires

Cui,

Dossi,

Rein

2023

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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Background Smouldering wildfires emit large amounts of carbon, toxic gases and particulate matter (PM), posing health and environmental hazards. It is challenging to conduct field measurements on wildfire emissions, and available instruments are limited by high cost and low mobility. Aim Here, we contribute to solving this challenge by studying three commercial low-cost and portable air quality analysers (KANE101, SDS011 and FLOW) and comparing them with research-grade instruments (FTIR, PM Cascade Impactor and DustTrak). Methods A series of laboratory experiments on peat smouldering were conducted including the stages of ignition, spread and burnout to provide conditions of emission measurements near the source. Key results The gas analyser KANE101 accurately measured CO2 and allowed calculation of modified combustion efficiency (MCE). The FLOW air pollution sensor was found unsuitable for PM measurements near fire sources because of its narrow range. FLOW captured the variation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), but measurements did not correlate well with NO2 measurements. The SDS011 PM sensor responded well in measuring PM10 in this study. Conclusions KANE101 and SDS011 can be used in the field after calibration to measure CO2/CO and PM. Implications This work provides a better understanding of how low-cost and portable emission sensors can be of use for wildfire measurements in the field.

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“…Recent efforts have been made to understand the process of smouldering combustion to better understand the hazards posed by this wildfire process. Previous work on peat fires has used commercial peat to analyze gas emissions (Hu et al 2020) and the chemical reactions involved in the ignition and spread of smoulder (Hadden et al 2013) in the laboratory. The influences of MC (Amin et al 2020;Huang and Rein 2017;Lin et al 2020), wind and slope (Christensen et al 2020), density (Krieger Filho et al 2020, and depth of peat (Lin et al 2021) on spread rate have been studied.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental and numerical characterisation of the smouldering combustion of peat

Hakes¹,

Allan²,

Ke³

et al. 2022

Advances in Forest Fire Research 2022

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Smouldering peat fires are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. As the climate warms, the frequency and severity of peat fires will continue to increase, with a single large fire event contributing as much CO2 to the atmosphere per day as an industrialized country. Estimates of the amount of CO2 released by peat fires contain large uncertainties, driven by overwhelming uncertainty in the mass of peat consumed in these fires. The present work addresses uncertainties in peat fire dynamics and smouldering through an iterative experimental and modelling process. Presented here is a first step towards predicting greenhouse gas emissions. Experiments focus on capturing the mass burnt in a smouldering peat fire and describing the smoulderingâ€”pyrolysis and oxidationâ€”process. Mass loss rate is found to vary as a sample is tested in lateral spread vs downward spread configurations. A one-dimensional model of peat smouldering is implemented, with initial qualitative results presented here, showing the drying of wet peat and the pyrolysis front. These results represent the current work in progress on this effort. Further work will compare experimental and simulation results for additional parameters of interest, and simulations will be used to inform which soil parameters to explore experimentally.

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Haze emissions from smouldering peat: The roles of inorganic content and bulk density

Cited by 14 publications

References 17 publications

Understanding, controlling and optimising the cooling of waste thermal treatment beds including STARx Hottpads

Understanding, controlling and optimising the cooling of waste thermal treatment beds including STARx Hottpads

Laboratory benchmark of low-cost portable gas and particle analysers at the source of smouldering wildfires

Experimental and numerical characterisation of the smouldering combustion of peat

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