Field-based measurements of major air pollutant emissions from typical porcelain kiln in China☆
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Air pollution is becoming a growing concern worldwide, especially in developing countries such as India and China (Cohen et al., 2017). The latest Global Burden of Disease (GBD) estimated that more than 4.6 million premature deaths were attributed to PM2.5 exposure, including 1.1 million in China (GBD, 2019). Generally, air pollution is associated with various pollutant emissions (Huang et al., 2014; Du et al., 2020); therefore, it is critical to characterize and quantify different emission sources. China has been famous for porcelains since 2000 BCE when the Silk Road was opened. Although some traditional porcelain kilns that burn solid fuels have been replaced by gas and electric kilns (Wu, 2014), a large proportion of porcelain is still produced in traditional wood-burning kilns, resulting in high pollutant emissions.
“Dragon kilns” are typical porcelain kilns that are widespread throughout the southern areas of China. As a semi-continuous kiln, a dragon kiln, named for its dragon shape, is designed with a series of chambers on the side of a hill. The dragon kiln was first built during the Shang dynasty in the 10th century BC in China. Generally, the kilns are 50 m long and 1.7 m high, built along the hill at a gradient of 20–30° (Hu, 2018; Li, 2019). A dragon kiln typically contains a kiln head, kiln chamber, kiln tail, and chimney. Porcelain kilns in China are substantial emissions sources, but the emissions factors ([EFs], pollutants emitted per unit of fuel) of various pollutants from porcelain kilns remain unknown. The lack of emissions data of various air pollutants from this sector will result in a substantial bias in the estimation of emissions inventories (Wang et al., 2014; Shen et al., 2014). Porcelain kilns usually have no emission control devices, resulting in the direct emissions of multiple air pollutants into the environment. Previous studies have focused on the emissions and health impacts of brick kilns (Chen et al., 2017; Nasim and Sharif, 2020), which cause substantial air pollutant emissions and adverse impacts on regional air quality and climate change. In contrast to brick kilns that rely on coal as the feeding fuel, dragon porcelain kilns rely on wood for combustion and have been overlooked in previous studies.
In this study, field-based emission tests were conducted to measure the emissions of air pollutants from typical porcelain kilns. The main objectives of this study were 1) to quantify the emission factors of various pollutants (CO2, CO, CH4, NOx, SO2, PM2.5, PM10, total suspended particulates [TSP], elemental carbon [EC], organic carbon [OC], parent polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [pPAHs], nitro-PAHs [nPAHs], and oxy-PAHs [oPAHs]) from dragon kilns; 2) to investigate the temporal variations in the emissions during the entire combustion process and the potential influencing factors; and 3) to estimate the environmental impact of solid fuel combustion in dragon kilns. The study is intended to fill the data gap in the emissions characteristics of biomass porcelain kilns and to develop policies on air pollution control.
Section snippets
Fuels and kiln
The study was conducted in Dehua County, Fujian Province, China. The kiln tested in this study was a typical dragon kiln that had been operating for more than 40 years (shown in Fig. 1). Approximately 25,000 kg of Masson pine is consumed during the entire combustion process, and the kiln owner has recorded fifty combustion cycles per year. Generally, the entire combustion process lasts for more than one day and produces 20,000 porcelains. Before the combustion is initiated, the wood is cut into
Emission factors of major pollutants
The MCE and EFs in units of per mass of the target pollutants delivered, including CO2, CO, CH4, NOx, SO2, PM2.5, PM10, TSP, EC, OC, pPAHs, nPAHs, and oPAHs, from the dragon kiln are listed in Table 1. Because the PAHs and their derivatives in PM2.5, PM10, and gas phases were also measured, these results are provided.
The average MCE was 0.87 (range of 0.56–0.99), comparable with the MCE of burning biomass in residential cooking stoves in rural China, but lower than the MCE of crop straw burning
Conclusion
This study is the first to examine the air pollutant emissions factors, emissions characteristics, and potential impacts of porcelain kilns on climate change. The EFs of PM2.5, PAHs, and other typical pollutants from the kiln were significantly lower than from cooking stoves fueled with wood and lower than from brick kilns, suggesting a strong removal effect of the special internal structure. The gas-particle distribution of PAHs in this study indicated that high molecular weight PAHs also had
Author statement
Wei Du: Writing- Original draft preparation, data analysis, and Conceptualization; Yuanchen Chen, Jinze Wang, Shaojie Zhuo, Shuiping Wu, Nan Lin, Guofeng Shen: Reviewing and Editing; Yuanchen Chen, Weijian Liu: Sampling; Shu Tao: Supervision.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(grant numbers 41701584 and 41922057).
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This paper has been recommended for acceptance by Pavlos Kassomenos