The Malaysian Journal of Analytical Sciences Vol 10 No 1 (2006): 121 – 128

 

 

 

 

HYDROCARBONS IN SMOKE AEROSOLS FROM CONTROLLED BURNING OF SELECTED TALLGRASS AND LITTERFALL SAMPLES:

A PRELIMINARY STUDY

 

Norhayati Mohd Tahir*, Tan Hock Sengi, Marinah Ariffin, Suhaimi Suratman

 

Environmental Research Group (ERG),

Department of Chemical Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology

Kolej Universiti Sains dan Teknologi Malaysia, Mengabang Telipot, 21030 Kuala Terengganu

 

*Correspondence author: hayati@kustem.edu.my

 

Abstract

A study has been carried out to characterize hydrocarbons emitted from the burning of selected tall grass and litter fall samples. The biomass samples were burned under smouldering and flaming conditions and their respective smoke particulate emitted was sampled by high volume filtration on a pre- cleaned (solvent extracted) glass fibre filters. Hydrocarbons were extracted from the filters using dichloromethane as solvent and the extracts fractionated on silica-alumina column. Detection and quantification of aliphatic hydrocarbons and PAHs compounds were carried out using GC-MS. For comparison, hydrocarbons in fresh tall grass sample were also characterized to determine differences in hydrocarbon profiles. Result indicated that the major organic component characterized from the smoke particles were straight chain aliphatic compound in the range of C18-C36, with an odd to even carbon number predominance  and carbon  preference  index (CPI)  ranging  from  1.21-  2.47.  On  the  other  hand, hydrocarbons present in the fresh tall grass ranged from C25-C34  with C31  species dominating and CPI value of 10.31. In general, CPI > 1 indicates n-alkanes contribution from epitucular waxes. It could be concluded that, even though the overall signature of the source of n-alkanes is maintained, burning seems to increase the range of aliphatic hydrocarbon emitted accompanied with a decrease in the CPI values. In addition, results also indicate that burning resulted in the formation of many PAHs compounds in all the three samples with concentration ranging from 731 - 3380 µg g-1. Fresh tall grass on the hand did not exhibit any PAHs compound, which clearly indicated that PAHs were generally generated from combustion process.

 

Keywords:  smoke aerosols, biomass, controlled burning, hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

 

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