Department of Environmental Monitoring, Central Mining Institute, Plac Gwarków 1, 40-166, Katowice, Poland.
Central Mining Institute, Plac Gwarków 1, 40-166, Katowice, Poland.
Environ Pollut. 2021 May 1;276:116766. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2021.116766. Epub 2021 Feb 17.
Air pollution constitutes the greatest environmental threat to human health in the European Union. In Poland, the emission of particulate matter and harmful gases originating from local coal based boiler plants and the combustion of fuels in residential heating appliances is a considerable source of air pollution. The combustion of fuel in home furnaces is inefficient due to the use of cheap fuels of low heating parameters and the frequent addition of waste. For the purpose of the research, deciduous tree wood pellets were selected as the basic fuel with the admixture of plastic waste, rubber, waste paper, wood residues, diapers, textile waste, multi-material packaging, construction waste, biomass and alternative fuel (RDF). Examining ash samples to confirm the practices of combusting or co-combusting waste materials in heating appliances is considered to be one of the most reliable detection methods; however, the results of direct research require further data processing. The application of hierarchical clustering analysis to the obtained results arranged into a matrix enabled in a simple way to demonstrate the similarities between the examined samples of fuel and the samples of fuel mixed with waste materials in the parameters space as well as to analyze the similarities among the measured parameters (the content of particular elements in ash) in the space of the examined samples. The application of chemometric methods for the purpose of identifying the combusted fuels, and, in particular the co-combusted waste complements the currently used monitoring tools which control the use of low quality fuels or the combustion of waste of different origin.
空气污染是欧盟人类健康面临的最大环境威胁。在波兰，来自当地燃煤锅炉厂和住宅取暖设备燃料燃烧的颗粒物和有害气体排放是空气污染的一个重要来源。由于使用廉价、低热值燃料以及经常添加废物，家用炉灶的燃料燃烧效率低下。出于研究目的，落叶树木屑颗粒被选为基本燃料，并添加了塑料废物、橡胶、废纸、木屑、尿布、纺织废物、多材料包装、建筑废物、生物质和替代燃料（RDF）。检查灰分样本以确认在取暖设备中燃烧或共燃烧废物材料的做法被认为是最可靠的检测方法之一；然而，直接研究的结果需要进一步的数据处理。应用层次聚类分析将获得的结果排列成矩阵，以简单的方式展示了在参数空间中检查过的燃料样本与混合有废物材料的燃料样本之间的相似性，并分析了在检查样本空间中测量参数（灰分中特定元素的含量）之间的相似性。应用化学计量学方法来识别燃烧的燃料，特别是共燃烧的废物，补充了目前用于控制使用低质量燃料或燃烧不同来源废物的监测工具。
