(619a) Particulate Pollutants Emission from Gasification and Corresponding Inhalation Exposure Assessment

Gasification technologies have been widely employed to produce fuels and chemicals from biomass or even solid wastes. However, rare studies have been conducted to quantify the particulate matter emission from gasification, and relevant inhalation exposure assessment is still lacking. In this work, we characterized the size distribution and chemical composition of particulate matters (PM) emitted from a series of gasification experiments with respect to food wastes and sewage sludge. The temporal variation of airborne PM was monitored using aerosol spectrometers and the potential influence of gasification towards environmental particulate concentration was explored. The size dependence of chemical composition in emitted PM was studied. The effects of experimental conditions (i.e. feedstock type and air flow rate) on the size distribution and chemical compositions of emitted PM were studies, which shed light on the PM emission control of gasification. Finally, existing respiratory deposition models were employed to analyze the deposition distributions of particles and chemical compositions in the human respiratory system based on the data of particle size and chemical compositions, which could potentially serve as the basis for proposing protective measures against the particulate pollution from gasification technologies.