EU effect: Exporting emission standards for vehicles through the global market economy

A comprehensive review on anthropogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emission estimates in China: Comparison and outlook

Accurate measurement and estimation on the trends and spatial distributions of VOCs emissions in China are critical to establishing efficient local or regional pollution control measures, while less is known about the discrepancies on VOCs emissions estimated by previous studies. In this study, two of the estimation approaches including the bottom-up and top-down methods have been reviewed with the data collected from many studies. The approaches demonstrated that the total anthropogenic VOCs emissions in China have been increasing since 1949. The contributions of industrial and solvent use to total VOCs emissions have been increasing since 2000, whereas the contributions of transportation sector have shown a decreasing trend since 2000. The contributions of fuel combustion have also been decreasing since 1950. The gaps of emission estimates for the industry and solvent use were 99.3 ± 22.7% and 81.5 ± 41.8%, respectively, which distributed in much wider ranges than other sources (e.g. 28.9 ± 16.7% for fuel combustion). In comparison to the top-down method, larger variations on the annual VOCs emission estimates were seen using the bottom-up method that comprised different data sources. For the view of spatial pattern, most hot emission estimate spots were concentrated in the eastern China, consistent to their relatively stronger strengths in the industrialization and urbanization. Although the total VOCs emission in China has been continuously increasing during 2008-2016, the VOCs emissions per gross domestic production (GDP) showed a decreasing trend. As for individual compounds, large discrepancy was seen on formaldehyde, with the coefficient of variation (CV) ranged from 37% to 128% over the years. In overall of view, the importance of industrial process and solvent use is increasing. More focuses must be made to these two sources. Emissions of individual compound, particularly those of oxygenated VOCs, were not completely determined and should be better quantified.

A Computer Tool for Modelling CO2 Emissions in Driving Tests for Vehicles with Diesel Engines

The dynamic development of transport in recent decades reflects the level of economic development in the world. The transport sector today is one of the main barriers to the achievement of the European Union’s climate protection objectives. More and more restrictive legal regulations define permissible emission limits for the amounts of toxic substances emitted into the atmosphere. Numerical CO2 modeling tools are one way to replace costly on-road testing. Driving cycles, which are an approximation of the vehicle’s on-road operating conditions, are the basis of any vehicle approval procedure. The paper presents a computer tool that uses neural networks to simulate driving tests. Data obtained from tests on the Mercedes E350 chassis dynamometer were used for the construction of the neural model. All the collected operational parameters of the vehicle, which are the input data for the built model, were used to create simulation control runs for driving tests: Environmental Protection Agency, Supplemental Federal Test Procedure, Highway Fuel Economy Driving Schedule, Federal Test Procedure, New European Driving Cycle, Random Cycle Low, Random Cycle High, Mobile Air Conditioning Test Procedure, Common Artemis Driving Cycles, Worldwide Harmonized Light-Duty Vehicle Test Procedure. Using the developed computer simulation tool, the impact on CO2 emissions was analyzed in the context of driving tests of four types of fuels: Diesel, Fatty Acid Methyl Esters, rapeseed oil, butanol (butyl alcohol). As a result of the processing of this same computer tool, mass consumption of fuels and CO2 emissions were analyzed in driving tests for the given analyzed vehicle.

An improved water footprint model of steel production concerning virtual water of personnel: The case of Iran

The water footprint concept has been widely applied to the agriculture sector; however, little attention has been given to industrial products. In this paper, the concept of water footprint is applied to a large steel plant located in a semi-arid basin in the central part of Iran. The limitations of existing research, including the lack of any advanced approach for assessing the virtual water of personnel's food, working in the plant, and the lack of providing independent data sources, are addressed. An improved water footprint model of steel production is proposed based on the water footprint network methodology and the life cycle assessment framework. Ideas from food ecological footprint are applied to measure the water footprint of personnel's foods. The case of Iran demonstrates that the water footprint of steel production is considerably large compared with other industrial products. The results highlight the relevance of production line technology, energy efficiency measures, and human management on reducing the water footprint of steel products. The paper adds to a growing body of literature on environmentally friendly steel production.

A novel approach to evaluate the lung cancer risk of airborne particles emitted in a city

Air quality still represents a main threat to human health in cities. Even in developed countries, decades of air pollution control not yet allowed to reduce pollutant concentrations in urban areas adequately. Indeed, high airborne particle concentrations are measured in several European cities; this is a main issue since particles represent a carrier for carcinogenic compounds. Numerous researches measuring the exposure to the different aerosol metrics in urban areas were recently performed, nonetheless, few data on the lung cancer risk in such environments are available. In the present paper a novel approach to evaluate the lung cancer risk related to the airborne particles emitted by the different sources located in a city is proposed and applied to a pilot case-study (i.e. an Italian city). In particular, an existing lung cancer risk model was modified and applied to assess the particle-related lung cancer "emitted" by the different sources of the city using pollutant emission factors provided by accredited emission inventory databases. Therefore, the average toxicity of the particles emitted by the city (i.e. lung cancer slope factor) and the lung cancer risk globally emitted by the city, expressed as new cases of lung cancer, were evaluated. The proposed emission inventory also allowed to identify and localize the main contributors to the overall risk emitted in a city. As an example, for the city under investigation, the research revealed that the main contributor, amongst the sources considered, is the vehicular traffic which is characterized by a lower mass fraction of carcinogenic compounds but a much higher sub-micron particle emission with respect to the other sources.

Morphologic and chemical composition of particulate matter in motorcycle engine exhaust

Despite the fact that environmental pollution due to motorcycle exhaust gases reports a great increase, motorcycle production exhibits a great increase through the last years. Countries of Asia and Africa are reported to be the major regions where two-wheeled vehicles are a major transportation mode, with tens of millions of units sold per year. Motorcycle exhaust particles are considered to be the major contributor to environmental pollution due to their airborne dispersion, containing great amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). This study aims at reporting an objective analysis of the main sources of the ambient air pollution as also particle size distribution and chemical composition analysis of particulate matter originated from the exhausts of two-wheeled vehicles used in the territory of Vladivostok, Russia. Various types of two-wheeled vehicles were examined (motorcycles, ATVs, scooters and wet bikes) using different types of engine and fuel system. Experimental results showed that there was no clear relation to the particle size distribution with the engine displacement of motorcycle and the number of strokes and the fuel system. Instead, there were reported two clear assumptions. The first one is that regarding to the motorcycle brand, a few samples did not exhibit a great percentage of PM10 fraction. The second one is that more modern vehicles, that have a harmful gas afterburning system, are usually the source of an increased percentage of PM10 emitted particles. At last, it should be mentioned that the laser particle size analysis method is capable of determining the particle sizes after their agglomeration whereas the optical morphometry method allows to determine the real particle size of emissions. In conclusion, it can be pointed out that the agglomeration of particles can lead to the reduction in the toxicity of particles emissions originated from two wheeled-vehicles.