Levoglucosan, a tracer for cellulose in biomass burning and atmospheric particles

The major organic components of smoke particles from biomass burning are mo nosaccharide derivatives from the breakdown of cellulose, accompanied by ge nerally lesser amounts of straight-chain, aliphatic and oxygenated compound s and terpenoids from vegetation waxes, resins/gums, and other biopolymers. Levoglucosan and the related degradation products from cellulose can be ut ilized as specific and general indicator compounds for the presence of emis sions from biomass burning in samples of atmospheric fine particulate matte r. This enables the potential tracking of such emissions on a global basis. There are other compounds (e.g. amyrones, friedelin, dehydroabietic acid, and thermal derivatives from terpenoids and from lignin-syringaldehyde, van illin, syringic acid, vanillic acid), which are additional key indicators i n smoke from burning of biomass specific to the type of biomass fuel. The m onosaccharide derivatives (e.g. levoglucosan) are proposed as specific indi cators for cellulose in biomass burning emissions. Levoglucosan is emitted at such high concentrations that it can be detected at considerable distanc es from the original combustion source. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.