Sustainable domestic burning of residual biomasses from the Friuli Venezia Giulia region

The implementation of short supply chain of available biomass from forest and agriculture residues locally available aims to gain environmental benefits deriving from reduced transportation, avoided abiotic depletion of resources and reduced net emissions of green-house gases. The main objective of the present study was to analyze possible environmental impacts arising from domestic burning of residual biomasses, in terms air pollution. Three different types of woody residual biomasses (Robinia pseudoacacia, Picea abies and Vitis vinifera) were collected within the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in the form of wood chips, converted into pellets and used in controlled combustion tests in a domestic stove. The efficiency of the combustion process and the amount of selected emitted pollutants (carbon monoxide, organic gaseous carbon, nitrogen oxides, benzene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and total suspended particulate matter) were evaluated. Moreover, the same analysis and combustion tests were carried out on three commercially available pellets (Abies alba, Fagus sylvatica and softwood mix) to achieve a better interpretation and contextualization of the results obtained. Picea abies developed significantly high concentrations of organic gaseous carbon, benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and rather high carbon monoxide emissions. Vitis vinifera was characterized by the highest total suspended particulate matter and carbon monoxide emissions. Robinia pseudoacacia was a very promising fuel showing both combustion and emission properties similar to the commercial pellets. Thus, with the outcomes of our work we highlighted that possible environmental drawbacks due to air pollution arising from residual biomass burning should be evaluated. Moreover, the scientific community of life cycle assessment scientists may benefit from having updated experimental measurements of air pollutants emitted by a domestic stove loaded with different locally available residual biomasses.