Abstract
Woody biomass energy is increasingly widespread due to its renewable nature. Before processing, biomass is typically stored in wood heaps located outdoor. A prolonged storage may lead to gaseous emission due to the physicochemical and biological degradations within the biomass. This experimental work focuses on the characterization of odorous emission from wood chips storage, since similar studies are not available in literature. To this purpose, some field measurements have been conducted on wood heaps stored in an Italian thermal power plant to evaluate if they represent a possible significant source of odour and to identify some potential parameters (i.e. storage time, wood matrix, presence of smoke) that may affect the odour release from wood storage. This study reveals the heterogeneity of the heap surface. Infact, while “dry zones” appears not particularly significant in terms of odour emission, “smoking zones” are characterised by odour concentrations values two orders of magnitude higher (and up to 200,000 ouE/m3). The presence of smoking areas seems to be strictly connected to the storage time, since in heaps stored from more than 100 - 150 days smoking regions only occur in localized areas and in less enhanced way. Therefore, storage time appears as a significant parameter which affects the odour emissions. On the contrary, the type of wood matrix seems not a crucial variable: no remarkable differences have been identified among heaps with different wood origin.
