Field-based emission measurements of biomass burning in typical Chinese built-in-place stoves

Residential combustion emission contributes significantly to ambient and indoor air pollution in China; however, this pollution source is poorly characterized and often overlooked in national pollution control policies. Few studies, and even fewer field-based investigations, have evaluated pollutant emissions from indoor biomass burning. One significant feature of Chinese household biofuel stoves is that many are built on site. In this study, 112 tests were conducted to investigate pollutant emission factors and variations for 11 fuel-stove combinations in actual use in the field. Results showed that, compared to those emission tests under controlled fuel burning conditions, EFs of methane, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, and organic carbon from the field-based uncontrolled tests were higher, but carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and elemental carbon were not significantly different. Controlled burning tests may be unrepresentative of real-world fuel burning. Pollutant emissions from uncontrolled burning tests had much higher variations compared with controlled tests. Most pollutant emissions from indoor straw burning are higher than that in open burning, except nitrogen oxides. The typical built-in-place home stoves in China had low efficiencies and high pollutant emissions that were rated as Tier 0 (the worst) or Tier 1 of a four-tier scale according to the International Organization for Standardization, International Workshop Agreement 11–2012. Effective interventions are expected to lower pollutant emissions from residential combustion to improve air quality and to protect human health. [Display omitted] •Field-based emission measurements on real-world indoor biomass burning.•Higher PM, OC, and CH4 from field-based uncontrolled burning process.•Statistically comparable CO, NOx and EC between controlled and uncontrolled tests.•Typical Chinese built-in-place stoves have low thermal efficiencies and high pollutant emissions.•Emission reduction may be achieved by promoting pellets and/or forced-draft stoves. Real-word emissions from biomass burning typical Chinese built-in-place stoves show substantial discrepancies in emission factors obtained from previous controlled burning tests.