Currently the number of deaths from biomass burning in air is estimated to be about 1.6 million persons per year. A more detailed breakdown of who dies, than the linked World Health Organization (WHO) webpage, is given in (see Gao et al, Energy Policy 35 (2007) 1433–1438) where it is reported that 808,000 of biomass burning deaths occur in children under 5 in the "high mortality" under developed world, along with 232,000 adult deaths in the same population...
...with 89,000 deaths in the "low mortality" developing world among children under 5, and 468,000 deaths among adults in the same population.
Together these two classes of human beings account for 78% of human population.
Things aren't going great in the first world either.
The paper I will discuss in this brief throwaway diary is found is the "ASAP" edition of Environmental Science and Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society, the largest scientific organization in the United States. The paper is entitled Methyl-Nitrocatechols: Atmospheric Tracer Compounds for Biomass Burning Secondary Organic Aerosols and is by Hartmann et al at the Leipzig Institute for Trophospheric Research.
m-Catechols - which in fact are the types of catechols discussed in this paper - in case you don't know what they are, are often carcinogenic suspect agents owing to their potential to oxidize to gem quinones that can bond irreversibly to DNA or RNA.
So here's some excerpts of the paper:
Natural and anthropogenic biomass burning emits large amounts of gases and particles into the atmosphere (1), impacting the environment (2) and affecting public health (3) significantly. Several hundreds ofcompoundsare detected both in the gaseous and particulate samples collected from laboratory biomass combustion (e.g., refs 4-7). These compounds largely originate from the pyrolysis of biopolymers such as lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose. Some of these compounds are specific to biomass burning and widely used as tracer compounds for the presence of biomass burning smoke in the ambient atmosphere...
...Substituted phenols including alkylphenols and methoxyphenols are another class of biomass burning tracer compounds that originate from the pyrolysis of lignin (11). Unlike levoglucosan, this class of compounds can be found in both the gas-phase and the particle-phase owing to their
wide range of volatilities... (4).
...In the present work, we report the presence of novel biomass burning secondary organic aerosol (BBSOA) tracer compoundsthat correlate very wellwith levoglucosan in PM10 field samples collected in a rural village of Seiffen, Germany during winter 2007-2008. On the basis of the results from laboratory experiments, aerosol chamber experiments, and the comparison to liquid chromatographic and mass spectrometric features of authentic standard compounds, these compounds are identified as 3-methyl-5-nitrocatechol, 4-methyl-5-nitrocatechol, and 3-methyl-6-nitrocatechol...
Um, delicious!
Here's how they did the work.
Experimental Section
Field Samples.
The ambient PM10 samples were collected between October 22, 2007 and March 30, 2008 at the rural village of Seiffen, Saxony, Germany (50°38′50" N, 13°27′08" E, 647m above mean sea level). The sampling site was located in a residential area and was significantly influenced by the emissions from domestic wood combustion. The PM10 samples were collected every four days on a prebaked quartz fiber filter
PM10, in case you don't know, refers to particulate matter that is less than 10 microns in diameter. These are the kind of particulates that are known to be most actively involved in lung diseases, including lung cancer.
Then there's a lot of technical stuff about the wonders of LC/MS/MS - one of the most important tools in modern analytical chemistry - about which people probably don't care much, but to suffice it to say, yes, these compounds are there in significant measurable quantities.
Quoth the authors,
Recent studies demonstrated that particle-bound levoglucosan can be readily oxidized by OH radicals under atmospheric conditions (41-43), indicating that such a mechanism may play an important role in the loss of organic material from biomass burning aerosol. In the case of methylnitrocatechols, the determination of the chemical elimination rate is further complicated as the formation and loss processes compete in the aging biomass burning smoke unlike levoglucosan. For this reason, the use of methyl-nitrocatechols in source apportionment studies requires careful consideration about the stability of these tracer compounds in the atmosphere.
Biomass burning particles are suspected to impose health risks due to their potential cytotoxicity, mutagenicity, and carcinogenicity. Detailed information about specific compounds or compound classes that damage human health in biomass burning particles is essential for regulating biomass burning emissions (3). In addition, nitrated phenols are phytotoxic (44) and their accumulation in the snow during the winter period may hinder the plant development in the spring as high concentrations of nitrated phenols enter the soil when the snow melts. Further study is warranted to examine the SOA formation from the oxidation of VOCs emitted from biomass burning and the potential environmental and health impacts of biomass burning originating SOA, especially nitrated compounds.
Isn't that special?
By the way, when I was a kid, I always wanted to get a bumper sticker that said, "Split wood, not atoms." I obviously had no scientific education at the time.
Germany, under the leadership of the moonlighting Gazprom Executive Gerhardt Schroeder - whose day job happened to be "Chancellor of Germany" - decided to phase out it's largest, by far, source of air pollution free form of energy 8 years ago, with some horseshit red herring talk about wind and solar energy. Eight years later, the form of clean energy that Gazprom Gerhard decided to phase out - nuclear energy - remains Germany's largest source of air pollution (including greenhouse gases) free energy, but the nuclear infrastructure is slated to be destroyed and replaced with technologies that do pollute the air.
Isn't that special too?
Have a nice evening.