Discrimination of biomass burning sources using innovative non-targeted approaches

Abstract : To date, the evaluation of the contributions of wood burning, used for residential heating, and green waste burning on the PM concentrations is rarely achieved. The objective of the research project SODEMASS is to identify specific organic molecular markers or chemical patterns of both biomass burning sources that can be further used in PM source apportionment studies. Several experiments have been performed in a combustion chamber to simulate the ambient air dilution conditions. Different wood combustion appliances (residential wood stove, fireplace) were tested and green waste burning experiments were performed using different burning materials (leaves and branches). About 50 PM samples have been characterized using both targeted and non-targeted (high-resolution mass spectrometry analyses) approaches. As targeted results were not enough to discriminate between wood and green waste burning sources in ambient air, non-targeted strategies were applied. After statistical analysis, several features specific of each biomass burning source were finally highlighted.