Investigation of organic pollutants from house heating systems using biogenic fuels and correlations with other exhaust gas components Original Research Article

Biogenic fuels are an interesting alternative to reduce the CO2 emission from energy plants and general heat supply. In contrast to wood as a fuel, biogenic fuels are much more critical because of their higher content of chloride, which seems to be an essential factor for the formation of chlorinated organic compounds. In the exhaust gases from hay and straw polychloro-dibenzo-furans and polychloro-dibenzo-p-dioxins in the ngI-TE/Nm3 level were detected. The polychlorobenzene (PCBz) concentrations were low, except from rape. Analogous to the PCBz yield the incineration of wood and biogenic fuels (except wheat straw pellet and hay chopping material) produced relatively small and comparable concentrations of polychlorophenols. The polyaromatic hydrocarbons concentration of untreated wood and biogenic fuels were also very similar. In contrast to the exhaust gas results the concentrations of PAH in slag from untreated wood were up to a factor 50 higher than from the other biogenic fuels.