An analysis of wood-burning installations from an environmental aspect

An extensive emissions study was recently performed on a 585-kW wood-burner installed at Hillcrest High School in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The results, expressed as emission factors (g/kg wet fuel), were: particulates, 0.5; CO, 3.8; POM, 0.007; “dioxins” and “furans”, 20 × 10 −6; lead, 0.0006; and nickel, 0.003. The cyclone efficiency was about 53%; although its effect on particles < 6 μm in size was very small. A comparison with literature emission data showed that the emissions from Hillcrest were, with the exception of CO, substantially lower than from residential wood-burning appliances.