At Baltensperger's laboratory, researchers have found that from wood-burning stoves, the secondary aerosols which are released, can vary from the type of wood burned and the design of the stove. PhD student Maarten Heringa and his fellow colleagues compared the emissions of two different log-wood burners and a residential pelt-burner under different conditions. Secondary organic aerosols were formed when the organic gases emitted by the different stoves oxidized when it was in the presence of sunlight, giving it organic particle matter. The two log-wood burners showed increases in organic material at the beginning and ending stages but in the pelt-burner, there was just a steady stream. They also found that newer types of log-burners also produce less aerosols. This topic was interesting to me because I was wondering what kind of differences there were in the different types of burners. It was also interesting to me that the differences were only mainly at the beginning and the end of the entire process not really at the middle.
Citations
Anscombe, Nadya. "Efficient Wood Burning Would Improve Air Quality."
Environmentalresearchweb. N.p., 7 Apr. 2011. Web. 8 Apr. 2011.
<http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/45617>.