Toxic Gas Emissions from Plywood Fires

Abstract

Toxic emissions from four construction plywoods were investigated using a freely ventilated cone calorimeter with raw predilution hot gas sampling. Each plywood sample was exposed to the conical heater of the cone calorimeter radiating at 35 kw/m 2 . Rich mixtures occurred in some of the tests, these rich mixtures produced high concentrations of toxic gases. The 4 samples had different peak heat release rate HRR, but similar steady state HRR. The elemental analysis of the four samples showed that they had different nitrogen content, indicating different glues were used. Plywood B had the highest N content of 6.43%, which resulted in the highest HCN concentration. The most important toxic species were CO, HCN, acrolein, formaldehyde and benzene on both an LC 50 and COSHH 15min basis.

Evaluation of Filtration Efficiency of Various Filter Media in Addressing Wildfire Smoke in Indoor Environments: Importance of Particle Size and Composition

“…The majority of these transformations occur rapidly, resulting in a typical particle size distribution that ranges from 20 to 250 nm, as shown in Figure 3. The resultant size distribution is characteristic of fresh smoke in accumulation mode and is in good agreement with other studies [73][74][75]. Importantly, in realistic conditions, as wildfire plume undergoes atmospheric transformations (ages), particle size has been found to increase by 100-150 nm, but remaining in a submicron range, as discussed above [25][26][27]75].…”

Non-Isothermal Thermogravimetry of Selected Tropical Woods and Their Degradation under Fire Using Cone Calorimetry

“…Temperature calibration was performed with Indium and aluminum standards. The repeatability of the experiments was excellent; the scatter between two parallel measurements in the temperature region of an active decomposition between 300-400 • C was lower than 1 • C. The average line from two parallel measurements was taken [21][22][23].…”