Maria Antonietta Costagliola

Assessment of ambient air quality in the port of Naples

Two experimental monitoring campaigns were carried out in 2012 to investigate the air quality in the port of Naples, the most important in southern Italy for traffic of passengers and one of the most important for goods. Therefore, it represents an important air pollution source located close to the city of Naples. The concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes) in the air were measured at 15 points inside the Naples port area through the use of passive samplers. In addition, a mobile laboratory was positioned in a fixed point inside the port area to measure continuous concentration of pollutants together with particulate matter, ambient parameters, and wind direction and intensity. The pollution levels monitored were compared with those observed in the urban area of Naples and in other Mediterranean ports. Even though the observation time was limited, measured concentrations were also compared with limit values established by European legislation. All the measured pollutants were below the limits with the exception of nitrogen dioxide: its average concentration during the exposition time exceeded the yearly limit value. A spatial analysis of data, according to the measured wind direction and intensity, provided information about the effects that ship emissions have on ambient air quality in the port area. The main evidence indicates that ship emissions influence sulfur dioxide concentration more than any other pollutants analyzed. Implications: Two monitoring campaigns were carried out to measure BTEX, SO2, NO2, and PM10 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter <10 μm) air concentrations in the port of Naples. NO2 hourly average and PM10 daily average comply with European legislative standards. Spatial variation of pollutants long the axis corresponding to the prevailing wind direction seems to indicate a certain influence of ship emissions for SO2. For NO2 and PM10, a correlation between concentrations in the harbor and those measured by the air quality monitoring stations sited in the urban area of Naples was observed, indicating a possible contribution of the near road traffic to the air pollution in the port of Naples.

Evaluation of emission factors for new technology S.I. Euro 4 cars

This research attempted to analyze the environmental impact of two available non-conventional vehicle technologies, highlighting the benefits in terms of emissions and fuel consumption reduction with respect to conventional vehicles. Moreover, tests were compared with predicted emissions of the conventional gasoline technology provided by the kinematic model developed. Results show that cold start strongly affects the emissions of CO, THC and NOX, which become very low during hot driving cycle. The existing emission model cannot be used to obtain a satisfactory prediction for hybrid car. But it could be proved that KEM emission model allows us to predict emission factor for conventional car and compressed natural gas. However, it is concluded that new experimental campaign with new technological cars might be interesting for future model developments.