Asad Naeem Shah

Real-world operation conditions and on-road emissions of Beijing diesel buses measured by using portable emission measurement system and electric low-pressure impactor.

On-road measurement is an effective method to investigate real-world emissions generated from vehicles and estimate the difference between engine certification cycles and real-world operating conditions. This study presents the results of on-road measurements collected from urban buses which propelled by diesel engine in Beijing city. Two widely used Euro III emission level buses and two Euro IV emission level buses were chosen to perform on-road emission measurements using portable emission measurement system (PEMS) for gaseous pollutant and Electric Low Pressure Impactor (ELPI) for particulate matter (PM) number emissions. The results indicate that considerable discrepancies of engine operating conditions between real-world driving cycles and engine certification cycles have been observed. Under real-world operating conditions, carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC) emissions can easily meet their respective regulations limits, while brake specification nitrogen oxide (bsNO(x)) emissions present a significant deviation from its corresponding limit. Compared with standard limits, the real-world bsNO(x) emission of the two Euro III emission level buses approximately increased by 60% and 120% respectively, and bsNO(x) of two Euro IV buses nearly twice standard limits because Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system not active under low exhaust temperature. Particle mass were estimated via particle size distribution with the assumption that particle density and diameter is liner. The results demonstrate that nanometer size particulate matter make significant contribution to total particle number but play a minor role to total particle mass. It is suggested that specific certified cycle should be developed to regulate bus engines emissions on the test bench or use PEMS to control the bus emissions under real-world operating conditions.

On-road pollutant emission and fuel consumption characteristics of buses in Beijing.

On-road emission and fuel consumption (FC) levels for Euro III and IV buses fueled on diesel and compressed natural gas (CNG) were compared, and emission and FC characteristics of buses were analyzed based on approximately 28,700 groups of instantaneous data obtained in Beijing using a portable emissions measurement system (PEMS). The experimental results revealed that NOx and PM emissions from CNG buses were decreased by 72.0% and 82.3% respectively, compared with Euro IV diesel buses. Similarly, these emissions were reduced by 75.2% and 96.3% respectively, compared with Euro III diesel buses. In addition, CO2, CO, HC, NOx, PM emissions and FC of Euro IV diesel buses were reduced by 26.4%, 75.2%, 73.6%, 11.4%, 79.1%, and 26.0%, respectively, relative to Euro III diesel buses. The CO2, CO, HC, NOx, PM emissions and FC factors all decreased with bus speed increased, while increased as bus acceleration increased. At the same time, the emission/FC rates as well as the emission/FC factors exhibited a strong positive correlation with the vehicle specific power (VSP). They all were the lowest when VSP < 0, and then rapidly increased as VSP increased. Furthermore, both the emission/FC rates and emission/FC factors were the highest at accelerations, higher at cruise speeds, and the lowest at decelerations for non-idling buses. These results can provide a base reference to further estimate bus emission and FC inventories in Beijing.

Carbonyl compound emissions from passenger cars fueled with methanol/gasoline blends

Carbonyl compound emissions from two passenger cars fueled with different methanol/gasoline blends (M15 and M100) and operated with three-way catalytic converters (TWC) were investigated. The tests were performed on a chassis dynamometer with constant volume sampling over the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). Carbonyls were trapped on dinitrophenylhydrazine (DNPH) cartridges. The hydrazones formed on the cartridge were analyzed by means of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and detected with a variable wavelength detector. The results show that when cars were fueled with methanol/gasoline blends, carbon monoxide (CO) and total hydrocarbon (THC) emissions decreased by 9-21% and 1-55% respectively, while nitrogen oxide (NO(x)) emissions increased by 175-233%. Compared with gasoline vehicles, formaldehyde emissions with M15 and M100 were two and four times higher respectively, and total carbonyls with M15 and M100 increased by 3% and 104% respectively. With the use of the new TWC, both regulated gas pollutants and formaldehyde decreased. The new TWC caused a decrease of 5% and 31% in formaldehyde concentration for M15 and M100, respectively. Specific reactivity (SR) with the new TWC was reduced from 5.92 to 5.72 for M15 and from 7.00 to 6.93 for M100, indicating that M15 and M100 with the new TWC were friendlier to the environment.

Impacts of continuously regenerating trap and particle oxidation catalyst on the NO2 and particulate matter emissions emitted from diesel engine.

Two continuously regenerating diesel particulate filter (CRDPF) with different configurations and one particles oxidation catalyst (POC) were employed to perform experiments in a controlled laboratory setting to evaluate their effects on NO2, smoke and particle number emissions. The results showed that the application of the after-treatments increased the emission ratios of NO2/NOx significantly. The results of smoke emissions and particle number (PN) emissions indicated that both CRDPFs had sufficient capacity to remove more than 90% of total particulate matter (PM) and more than 97% of solid particles. However, the POC was able to remove the organic components of total PM, and only partially to remove the carbonaceous particles with size less than 30 nm. The negligible effects of POC on larger particles were observed due to its honeycomb structure leads to an inadequate residence time to oxidize the solid particles or trap them. The particles removal efficiencies of CRDPFs had high degree of correlations with the emission ratio of NO2/NOx. The PN emission results from two CRDPFs indicated that more NO2 generating in diesel oxidation catalyst section could obtain the higher removal efficiency of solid particles. However this also increased the risk of NO2 exposure in atmosphere.

Unregulated emissions from a diesel engine equipped with vanadium-based urea-SCR catalyst.

The present work is aimed at the study of number-size distribution of particles, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and carbonyl compounds (CC) or carbonyls emitted from a 4-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine equipped with a vanadium-based urea selective catalytic reduction catalyst. The engine was run on an electric dynamometer in accordance with the European steady-state cycle. Pollutants were analyzed using an electric low pressure impactor, a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer, and a high performance liquid chromatography system for the number-size distribution of particles, VOCs, and CC emissions, respectively. Experimental results revealed that total number of particles were decreased, and their number-size distributions were moved from smaller sizes to larger sizes in the presence of the catalyst. The VOCs were greatly reduced downstream of the catalyst. There was a strong correlation between the conversion of styrene and ethyl benzene. The conversion rate of benzene increased with increase of catalyst temperature. Formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein and acetone were significantly reduced, resulting in a remarkable abatement in carbonyls with the use of the vanadium-based urea-SCR system.

Effects of continuously regenerating diesel particulate filters on regulated emissions and number-size distribution of particles emitted from a diesel engine.

The effects of continuously regenerating diesel particulate filter (CRDPF) systems on regulated gaseous emissions, and number-size distribution and mass of particles emanated from a diesel engine have been investigated in this study. Two CRDPF units (CRDPF-1 and CRDPF-2) with different specifications were separately retrofitted to the engine running with European steady-state cycle (ESC). An electrical low pressure impactor (ELPI) was used for particle number-size distribution measurement and mass estimation. The conversion/reduction rate (R(CR)) of hydrocarbons (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) across CRDPF-1 was 83% and 96.3%, respectively. Similarly, the R(CR) of HC and CO and across CRDPF-2 was 91.8% and 99.1%, respectively. The number concentration of particles and their concentration peaks; nuclei mode, accumulation mode and total particles; and particle mass were highly reduced with the CRDPF units. The nuclei mode particles at downstream of CRDPF-1 and CRDPF-2 decreased by 99.9% to 100% and 97.8% to 99.8% respectively; and the particle mass reduced by 73% to 92.2% and 35.3% to 72.4%, respectively, depending on the engine conditions. In addition, nuclei mode particles increased with the increasing of engine speed due to the heterogeneous nucleation initiated by the higher exhaust temperature, while accumulation mode particles were higher at higher loads due to the decrease in the air-to-fuel ratio (A/F) at higher loads.

Characterization of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emissions from diesel engine retrofitted with selective catalytic reduction and continuously regenerating trap

Two after treatment units, selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and continuously regenerating trap (CRT), were independently retrofitted to a diesel engine, with the objective to investigate their impact on the conversion/reduction (CR) of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The experiments were conducted under the European steady state cycle (ESC) first without any retrofits to get baseline emissions, and then with SCR and CRT respectively, on the same engine. The particulate matter (PM)-phase PAHs were trapped in fiberglass filters, whereas gas-phase PAHs were collected in cartridges, and then analyzed using a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS). Both PM-phase and gas-phase PAHs were greatly reduced with CRT showing respective CR of 90.7% and above 80%, whereas only gas-phase PAHs were abated in the case of SCR, with CR of above 75%. Lower molecular weight (LMW) PAHs were in abundance, while naphthalene exhibited a maximum relative contribution (RC) to LMW-PAHs for all three cases. Further, the CR of naphthalene and anthracene were increased with increasing catalyst temperature of SCR, most likely due to their conversion to solid particles. Moreover, the Benzo[a]Pyrene equivalent (BaP(eq)) of PAHs was greatly reduced with CRT, owing to substantial reduction of total PAHs.