Origin of air polluting emissions from firewood combustion in a residential stove

In order to design better and cleaner wood stoves, an improved wood stove model is needed which takes into account the pyrolysis process of firewood. The wood stove model used, predicts incomplete combustion some minutes after addn. of fresh firewood to the fire, but in actual situations, different parts of wood logs warm up at different rates and not uniformly and may cause a peak in emissions. In contradiction to the wood stove model, a decrease in O concn. occurred in the first few minutes of the burn cycle, due to org. gases that oxidize at lower temps. than CO. It is necessary to avoid cold as well as very hot spots in the fire. In the 1st case, combustion is incomplete, and in the 2nd, a high level of thermal radiation causes rapid degassing of the firewood, excess O consumption, and emission of CO and org. matter. [on SciFinder (R)]