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Growing popularity of artificial sweeteners commonly used as a sucrose substitute causes a rapid increase in their production which is close to 2 million metric tons annual. Large quantities both produces, transported and stored organic materials naturally pose a threat of a major industrial accident which can be prove only by a series of breakdowns related to the explosion of sugar dust. The purpose of this work was to determine and compare parameters describing thermal stability and characteristics of burning process of six compounds of the sugar alcohols: xylitol, D-mannitol, D-sorbitol, maltitol, myo-inositol, meso-erythritol; with sucrose. We also investigated gaseous products generated during thermal decomposition of tested polyalcohols. The tests were conducted using following devices: cone calorimeter, smoke density chamber, purser furnace, differential scanning calorimeter, gas chromatography in accordance with appropriate standards. Almost all of tested sugar alcohols generate more heat during combustion than sucrose. Under higher values of applied heat flux, maltitol shows the highest maximum heat release rate although its ignition time is almost twice the time of sucrose. The only compound that did not ignite during smoke density measurements was meso-erythritol. Sucrose did ignite before the VOF4 parameter could be measured. Based on gained results it can be concluded that under specific conditions sugar alcohols can be equally or even more dangerous than sucrose.

International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards (9; 2019; Saint Petersburg, Russia). Proceedings of the Ninth International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards [Электронный ресурс]: 21-26 April 2019, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Vol. 2 / Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Autonomous Non-Profit Organization "Fire and Explosion Safety", Gefest Holding Ltd ; [edited by A. Snegirev [et al.]. — Электрон. текстовые дан. (1 файл : 98,7 Мб). — Saint Petersburg, 2019. — Загл. с титул. экрана. — Свободный доступ из сети Интернет (чтение, печать, копирование). — Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0. — <URL:http://elib.spbstu.ru/dl/2/k19-97.pdf>. — <URL:http://doi.org/10.18720/SPBPU/2/k19-97>.