Smoke emission is one of the basic

Smoke emission is one of the basic elements for characterizing a fire environment. The combustion conditions under which smoke is produced—flaming, pyrolysis, and smoldering—affect the amount and character of the smoke. The smoke emission from a flame represents a balance between growth processes in the fuel-rich portion of the flame and burnout with oxygen. While it is not possible at the present time to predict the smoke emission as a function of fuel chemistry and combustion conditions, it is known that an aromatic polymer, such as polystyrene, produces more smoke than hydrocarbons with single carbon-carbon bonds, such as polypropylene. The smoke produced in flaming combustion tends to have a large content of elemental (graphitic) carbon