KEYNOTE Fate

of Organic Matter and

Pyrogenic Char in Smouldering Fires: when soils burn to ash

Dr Guillermo Rein Department of Mechanical Engineering

4th Int. Meeting of Fire Effects on Soil Properties, Vilnius, July 2013

Haze 2013, South East Asia

CONTENTS: ROOTS OF HAZE

EPISODES

LARGEST FIRES ON EARTH FATE OF ORGANIC

MATTER

PYROGENIC CHAR

Sign at NTU Singapore, 2011

The 1997 smouldering peat fires in Borneo released between 0.8 and 2.6 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. That is equivalent to 13 to 40 % of all emissions from burning fossil fuels
Page et al. Nature 420, 2002

22 Oct 1997 smoke plume NASA TOMS satellite

The Evans Road fire

Summer 2008, North Carolina, USA Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge

The Evans Road fire burned for 7 months

During worst drought on record 16,500 ha burned (2x year avg.) 1 m deep into the soil by flooding and excavation $20 million in suppression costs

National Geographic 2008/ AP Photo/MODIS

"Think of it as one giant charcoal briquette. It will ignite and the fire will sink into the soil State Forest Manager NC, 2008 Equivalent to 1340% of manmade global carbon emissions (and not account for by IPCC yet)

National Geographic 2008/ AP Photo/MODIS

salvemoslastablas.blogspot, Toms Beldad, 2009

Russian Haze,summer 2010

Rothiemurchus Wildfire, July 2006

by G Rein, 2006

Rothiemurchus Wildfire, July 2006

by G Rein, 2006

Rothiemurchus Wildfire, July 2006

by G Rein, 2006

Rothiemurchus Wildfire, July 2006

by G Rein, 2006

Rothiemurchus Wildfire, Aug 2008

Aug 2008 by Dr C Legg

World Map of Peatlands

From shallow (<0.1 m) to deep layers (>30 m) Contain more terrestrial carbon than the forests or the atmosphere

Gore, 1983

Organic Soils - Ignition Limits

no ignition

Ignition

dry base

Frandsen, Can. J. For. Res. 1997

Smouldering Combustion
Incomplete combustion Heterogeneous combustion on pore surface Fuels: peat, coal, duff, organic soils

Flameless Low peak temperature ~600C Low heat of combustion ~5 kJ/g Creeping propagation ~1 mm/min

Incomplete combustion Heterogeneous combustion on pore surface Cocktail of emissions CO2, CO, PM, CH4, PAH...

Biomass (solid) Heat Pyrolyzate (gas) Char (solid) Ash (solid) Char (solid) O 2 Heat CO 2 H 2 O other gases Ash (solid)
Rein, Smouldering Fires and Natural Fuels - Wiley 2013

igniter

Gas Emissions

Carbon gaseous emissions mostly as CO2 and CO, but also CH4 and PAH CO/CO2 smouldering is 0.43 0.12. vs. typical values for flaming combustion ~0.1

Rein et al., Proc. Comb. Inst., 2009

Transition to Flaming Combustion

1h
Torero 1992, UCB/NASA

30 min

1s

1s

flow velocity (m/s)

3 2 1 no transition

transition 0.3 0.35

Bar-Ilan et al, Proc. Comb. Inst. 30, pp 2295-2302, 2005

oxygen fraction

0.4

Most persistent fires on Earth

Smouldering fires are the easiest to ignite
Ignition with much smaller heat sources (8 vs. 15 kW/m2) Selfheating possible at ambient temperatures (ie, 30 C)

Smouldering fires are most difficult to suppress

Larger amounts of water (>50% larger kgH2O/kgfuel) Lower critical oxygen concentration (10% [O2] vs. 16%) Much longer holding times for smothering (~months vs. min)

The oldest continuously burning fire on Earth is a smouldering coal seam in Australia ignited >6,000 years old
Rein, Smouldering Fires and Natural Fuels - Wiley 2013

Smouldering Depth of Burn hb

The depth of burnt hb increases ~linearly with time during a fire Maximum depth h0 given by
location of the inert layer Location of thick moist layer (>125%MC) timing of flooding (heavy continuous rain or
2008 Evans Fire, USA

firefighting)

m(tb ) hb 0
A shallow fire with a depth of burn of 5 cm (lab experiment) fuel consumption m ~7 kg/m2 Depth of burns reported in the literature from 0.1 to 5 m, most typically 0.5 m m ~ 75 kg/m2 Typical consumption for flaming fires m ~ 0.2 to 5 kg/m2
Indepth spread over thick peat layers leads to 50 to 100 times larger fuel consumptions than flaming fires (confirmed by field measurements
Langmann and Heil, ACP 2004)

Spread over dry/wet patterns

Checker board Top view, 5 cm deep peat layer. 20 x 20 cm square box

Longitudinal split

Perpendicular split

Peat Reactivity

Huang and Rein, Combustion and Flame 2013

Carbon Balance

Carbon fraction in char is ~1.5 times higher than peat Carbon fraction in ash is ~35 times lower than char During fires peat soil goes from 77 to 0.7 kgC/m3

Hadden et al, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, 2012

Pyrogenic Char
Char is simultaneously product and reactant in pyrolysis and oxidation reactions, which initially results in net char production and later become net char consumption.

Hadden et al, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, 2012

Peat Reactivity TGA and Kinetics

Chen et al, Energy & Fuels 2011

Huang and Rein, Combustion and Flame 2013

Simulations of Indepth spread

The 1step drying and 4step decomposition kinetics scheme explains the order of the reactions during indepth combustion: Drying first, then Pyrolysis and last is Oxidation
Huang and Rein, Combustion and Flame 2013

Soil Heating vs. Soil Burning

Experimental measurements of thermal severity smouldering flaming soil depth Medical sterilization of surgery instruments
Rein et al, Catena 2008

Fires in the Fossil Record

Current science:

Char abundance is a proxy to fire abundance Implicit assumption: char abundance increases with fire intensity and frequency This is correct for flaming fires.
Bonefire example:

char remains at flameout vs. ash remains the day after

Char abundance decreases with smouldering intensity and

frequency Possible sources of lower char: a) Smouldering fire; or b) Residual smouldering postflaming fire
Suggests: In addition to char, look for ash

Smouldering column tests of Sphagnum peat at different initial moisture contents (MC) ignited at the top:, dry conditions (MC50%), undisturbed conditions (MC100%), and wet conditions (MC200%).

Chemical Analysis of soil residue at the smouldering front

Dry
MC50%
Zaccone et al., EGU2012-4795, XY648

Undistr.
MC100%

Wet
MC200%

Ash, pH and elemental composition (MC100% vs. FP)

0 0 (%) 10 20 0 3 6 9 0 40 (%) 60 80

Depth from front (mm)

40

Ash content
100%MC Fresh peat

40

pH

40

TC
80

80

80 100%MC Fresh peat

120

120

120

100%MC Fresh peat

160

160

160

(%) 0 0 2 4 6 0 0 20 40 60 0 0 10 20 30

Depth from front (mm)

40

40

TN
80 80

C/N ratio

40

C/H ratio

80

120

100%MC Fresh peat

120

100%MC Fresh peat

120

100%MC Fresh peat

160

160

160

Data show: a higher production of higher C/H values; the increase of the total N and decrease of C/N ratio suggesting the incorporation of, and
C/H vs. C/N
25

aromatic and

condensed molecules, as underlined by the

the relative enrichment in, N during charring.

MC100% FP

MC50%
20 R=0.9846 15 C/H

MC200%

10

R=0.192

R=0.8799 5

0 0 10 20 30 C/N 40 50 60

Energy and Climate Crisis

World energy use and climate change science has led to international concerns on:
Fossil fuel energy Carbon emissions Environmental protection Sustainability

Most attention is paid to increased energy efficiency, lower resource consumption and develop clean energy technologies

Accidental Sources
But accidental sources of fossilfuel burning contributing to the problem are largely ignored This includes nonanthropogenic sources as well: Smouldering Megafires in Peatlands

Smouldering Natural Fuels

Most important: duff, humus, peat, coal Decayed vegetation matter, from shallow (<0.1 m) to deep layers (>30 m).

10 years 1,000 years 1,000,000 years 300,000,000 years

Flaming vs. Smouldering

Flaming fires consume grasslands, shrubs and forests. These take 10-102 years to grow back and sequester back the carbon = Renewable & Carbon
Neutral

Smouldering fires consume peat, National Geographic 2008/ AP Photo/MODIS organic soils and coal. These take 104 to 109 years to grow again =
Not Renewable & Carbon Positive Smouldering fires burn ancient carbon (akin to fossil fuels)

Feedback Mechanism in the Earth System

Permafrost thaw are already resulting in large smouldering artic fires (e.g., Alaska 2010).

topics I work on

Conclusions
Smouldering combustion of peatlands leads to the largest fires on Earth
100 times higher fuel consumption per area than flaming

fires

Consume organic matter and release ancient carbon stored deep in the soil (accidental fossil fuel burning)
Soil goes from 77 to 0.7 kgC/m3

Pose a positive feedback mechanism to climate change via moisture deficit, thaw and self heating
Topic of global interest linked to ecosystem perturbation,

carbon sequestration and climate change

Thanks
Rein, Smouldering Fires and Natural Fuels - Wiley 2013 Huang and Rein, Combustion and Flame 2013

Hadden et al, Proc

Combustion Institute 2012

Belcher et al, PNAS 2011 Rein et al., Proc Combustion Institute 2009 Rein et al, Catena 2008

Megafires

dt S d t 0 m(t ) m
0

t dt mt (t ) m
0

0 S d Sl2t 3

Smouldering spreads in area and indepth. It is a volumetric phenomenon (flaming is a surface phenomenon)

Combustion Dynamics

As the intensity of the fire increases (proxy via increasing oxygen concentration), the fraction of residual char rapidly decreases to zero.

July 1999 Anomalous climate conditions led to first reported smouldering wild-urban interface. Peat fires burn south of the city for weeks and haze covered five districts. That same year, other peat fires forced President Yeltsin to change holyday resort.

Days in July 1999

1999 A Belenky / SPT

NYT Smoke Shrouds Moscow as Peatbog fire rages

@ New York Times, 1972

1972:

National Geographic 2008/ AP Photo/MODIS

Sign at the sports centre of the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2012

This is home to the experimental branch of the Imperial Haze Lab, research group of Dr Guillermo Rein at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. We study the heat transfer, condensed-phase chemistry and thermodynamics of reactive solids. Our contributions help understand and solve global environmental problems, threats to energy resources and the protection of infrastructure.

Mechanical Engineering Building, 2nd floor g.rein@imperial.ac.uk http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/g.rein