The solvent-extractable organic compounds in the Indonesia biomass burning aerosols - characterization studies

The large-scale air pollution episode due to the out-of-control biomass burning for agricultural purposes in Indonesia started in June 1997, has become a severe environmental problem for itself and the neighboring countries. The fire lasted for almost five months. Its impact on the health and ecology in the affected areas is expected to be substantial, costly and possibly long lasting. Air pollution Index as high as 839 has been reported in Malaysia. API is calculated based on the five pollutants: NO2, SO2, O-3, CO, and respirable suspended particulates (PM10). It ranges in value from 0 to 500. An index above 101 is considered to be unhealthy and a value over 201 is very unhealthy (Abidin and Shin, 1996). The solvent-extractable organic compounds from four total suspended particulate (TSP) high-volume samples collected in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Stations Pudu and SIRIM) were subjected to characterization - the abundance was determined and biomarkers were identified. Two of the samples were from early September when the fire was less intense, while the other two were from late September when Kuala Lumpur experienced very heavy smoke coverage which could be easily observed from NOAA/AVHRR satellite images. The samples contained mainly aliphatic hydrocarbons such as n-alkanes and triterpanes, alkanoic acids, alkanols, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The difference between the early and late September samples was very significant. The total yield increased from 0.6 to 24.3 mu g m(-3) at Pudu and 1.9 to 20.1 mu g m(-3) at SIRIM, with increases in concentration in every class. The higher input of vascular plant wax components in the late September samples, when the fire was more intense, was characterized by the distribution patterns of the homologous series n-alkanes, 12-alkanoic acids, and n-alkanols, e.g., lower U:R, higher > C-22/ < C-20 for n-alkanoic acids, higher > C-20/< C-20 for n-alkanols, a shift in C-max from C-16 to C-26 for n-alkanoic acids and C-18 to C-28 for n-alkanols, and the presence of abundant moretane (17 beta(H), 21 alpha(H)-hopanes). The biomarkers dehydroabietic acid and retene were not found in the samples suggesting there is a difference in the long-distance transport samples of an Asian forest fire and the controlled experiments reported in the literature. Similar to the biomass burning in Amazonia (Abas et al., 1995), the present study also showed an absence of conifer tracers in the smoke aerosols indicating tropical wood sources. Abundant friedelin, a specific biomarker for smoke from oak wood fires (Standley and Simoneit, 1990), was present in the late September samples when the fire was more intense. The results were compared to literature values from an earlier study of the haze episode on 29 September 1991 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Abas and Simoneit, 1996). (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.