Monitoring Pollutants in Biomass Using FT-IR-ATR Technology

Monitoring solid pollutants in wooden biomass can avoid environmental pollution and can offer interesting opportunities of business by transforming wooden industrial wastes into a precious and clean energy source. Objective of this research is the control of solid pollutants in biomass from forest, such as from wood processing enterprises and from wood waste, reached by using FT­IR­ATR technology. The research goes through 3 steps: evaluation of pollutants dynamics within time from contamination and in reference to wood sizes particles, level of detection threshold in pollutants concentration, monitoring (presence and concentration) of pollutants in solid wood, chips, pellets originated from forest. Not contaminated Norway spruce wood was experimentally contaminated with oil and fuels. Preliminary results showed that occurrence, concentration and typology of pollutants were successfully measured with FT­IR­ATR. This research presents part of the study realized within the research project BiQueen, granted by CARITRO Foundation.