Abstract

We investigate the Galactic disc distribution of a sample of planetary nebulae characterized in terms of their mid-infrared spectral features. The total number of Galactic disc PNe with 8-13 ?m spectra is brought up to 74 with the inclusion of 24 new objects, the spectra of which we present for the first time. 54 PNe have clearly identified warm dust emission features, and form a sample that we use to construct the distribution of the C/O chemical balance in Galactic disc PNe. The dust emission features complement the information on the progenitor masses brought by the gas-phase N/O ratios: PNe with unidentified infrared emission bands have the highest N/O ratios, while PNe with the silicate signature have either very high N enrichment or close to none. We find a trend for a decreasing proportion of O-rich PNe towards the third and fourth Galactic quadrants. Two independent distance scales confirm that the proportion of O-rich PNe decreases from 30 ± 9 per cent inside the solar circle to 14 ± 7 per cent outside. PNe with warm dust are also the youngest. PNe with no warm dust are uniformly distributed in C/O and N/O ratios, and do not appear to be confined to C/O ? 1. They also have higher 6-cm fluxes, as expected from more evolved PNe. We show that the IRAS fluxes are a good representation of the bolometric flux for compact and IR-bright PNe, which are probably optically thick. Selection of objects with F(12 ?m) > 0.5 Jy should probe a good portion of the Galactic disc for these young, dense and compact nebulae, and the dominant selection effects are rooted in the PN catalogues.