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Emission of air pollutants from burning candles with different composition in indoor environments

Environmental Science and Pollution Research volume 21, pages 4320–4330 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

Candle composition is expected to influence the air pollutants emissions, possibly leading to important differences in the emissions of volatile organic compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. In this regard, the purity of the raw materials and additives used can play a key role. Consequently, in this work emission factors for some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, aromatic species, short-chain aldehydes and particulate matter have been determined for container candles constituted by different paraffin waxes burning in a test chamber. It has been found that wax quality strongly influences the air pollutant emissions. These results could be used, at least at a first glance, to foresee the expected pollutant concentration in a given indoor environment with respect to health safety standards, while the test chamber used for performing the reported results could be useful to estimate the emission factors of any other candle in an easy-to-build standardised environment.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support from the Associazione Cerai d’Italia is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Chimica, Materiali e Ingegneria Chimica “G. Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, 20131, Milano, Italy

    Marco Derudi, Simone Gelosa, Andrea Sliepcevich, Renato Rota & Giuseppe Nano

  2. Dipartimento di Scienza e Alta Tecnologia, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Via Valleggio 11, 22100, Como, Italy

    Andrea Cattaneo & Domenico Cavallo

Authors
  1. Marco Derudi
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  2. Simone Gelosa
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  3. Andrea Sliepcevich
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  4. Andrea Cattaneo
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  5. Domenico Cavallo
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  6. Renato Rota
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  7. Giuseppe Nano
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Correspondence to Giuseppe Nano.

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Responsible editor: Constantini Samara

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Derudi, M., Gelosa, S., Sliepcevich, A. et al. Emission of air pollutants from burning candles with different composition in indoor environments. Environ Sci Pollut Res 21, 4320–4330 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2394-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2394-2

Keywords

  • Candles
  • Emission factor
  • Volatile organic compounds
  • PAHs
  • Particulate matter
  • Paraffin wax