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Speciated Volatile Organic Compound and Ethylene Oxide Emissions from Residential Wood and Pellet Stove Appliances
Citation:
Warren, N., I. George, A. Brashear, Pertti Virtaranta, E. Thompson, P. Kariher, J. Martin, M. Hays, T. Yelverton, A. Holder, L. Alston, AND D. Yang. Speciated Volatile Organic Compound and Ethylene Oxide Emissions from Residential Wood and Pellet Stove Appliances. AWMA Measurements Conference, Durham, NC, November 14 - 16, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
This is an abstract submission to the Air Waste Management Association Air Quality Measurement Methods and Technology Conference in Durham, NC on Nov. 14-16, 2023. This work summarizes preliminary results from woodstove and pellet stove emissions testing focusing on emissions of volatile organic compounds. In addition, ethylene oxide (EtO) measurement methods were evaluated to investigate the capabilities of currently available measurement approaches to characterize EtO in wood burning emissions.
Description:
Residential wood and pellet stoves are important sources of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particulate matter (PM), and other hazardous air pollutants (i.e., air toxics) that contribute to poor air quality. VOCs released during residential wood combustion (RWC) can react with atmospheric oxidants leading to the formation of secondary aerosols that can cause negative effects to human health on local and regional scales. In response, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implemented the New Source Performance Standard to limit PM emissions from wood burning appliances. Recently, the emissions of air toxics from RWC have become a research topic of interest due to the dearth of emissions data from this source category. Source emissions characterization and method development for ethylene oxide (EtO) is a critical area of EPA research. EtO may be present in wood and pellet combustion emissions, but evidence to confirm this is limited. Furthermore, there are important fundamental questions regarding whether the currently available measurement methods can accurately quantify EtO from direct combustion sources. This research effort aims to improve our understanding of speciated air toxic VOC emissions from wood and pellet stoves and evaluate methods to quantify EtO in RWC emissions. Emissions testing was conducted at EPA’s Office of Research and Development’s wood stove testing facility in Research Triangle Park, NC. The overall scope of this research is to explore data quality metrics for EtO methods and investigate the effects of stove technology, fuel source, and burn rate on the composition of speciated VOC emissions. In this emissions testing effort, EtO measurements were compared using EPA Method TO-15A and OSHA Method 1010. EPA Methods TO-15A with TO-11A were also utilized to quantify speciated air toxic VOCs in the RWC smoke and were compared for carbonyl VOC emissions measurement. The speciated emissions profiles generated from this study will be utilized to populate EPA’s SPECIATE database and National Emissions Inventory.