Susana López-Aparicio

Evaluation of the use of bioethanol fuelled buses based on ambient air pollution screening and on-road measurements.

Mitigation measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may have adverse effects on urban air quality and human exposure to harmful pollutants. The use of bioethanol fuelled vehicles is increasing worldwide and may create new undesired pollution effects. Different measurement campaigns were performed in a pilot study to contribute to the understanding of the consequences associated with the use of bioethanol blended fuel (E95) on a series of pollutants. Ambient screening measurements of NO2, O3, acetic acid, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde were performed at different urban locations, exposed and not exposed to the circulation of bioethanol buses. In addition, volatile organic compounds were measured at the exhaust pipe of a bioethanol fuelled bus, both under idling conditions (carbonyls; DNPH cartridge) and under on-road driving conditions applying online monitoring (PTR-TOF). Higher ambient acetaldehyde values were measured at locations exposed to bioethanol fuelled buses than at locations not exposed, and very high acetaldehyde and acetic acid values were measured from the exhaust pipe during driving conditions (acetaldehyde>150 ppm; acetic acid ≈ 20-30 ppm) and modelled at close distance to the bioethanol bus. Human exposure to high concentration of acetaldehyde is expected, and it may involve a significantly increased chance in developing cancer. The high concentration of acetic acid will involve odour annoyance and significant material degradation or corrosion.

Impact of bioethanol fuel implementation in transport based on modelled acetaldehyde concentration in the urban environment

This study shows the results obtained from emission and air dispersion modelling of acetaldehyde in the city of Oslo and associated with the circulation of bioethanol vehicles. Two scenarios of bioethanol implementation, both realistic and hypothetical, have been considered under winter conditions; 1) realistic baseline scenario, which corresponds to the current situation in Oslo where one bus line is running with bioethanol (E95; 95% ethanol-5% petrol) among petrol and diesel vehicles; and 2) a hypothetical scenario characterized by a full implementation of high-blend bioethanol (i.e. E85) as fuel for transportation, and thus an entire bioethanol fleet. The results indicate that a full implementation of bioethanol will have a certain impact on urban air quality due to direct emissions of acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde emissions are estimated to increase by 233% and concentration levels increase up to 650% with regard to the baseline.

A benchmarking tool to screen and compare bottom-up and top-down atmospheric emission inventories

This paper describes the Δ-Emis tool for emission inventories, recently developed in the framework of Forum for Air Quality Modelling in Europe (FAIRMODE). The Δ-Emis tool consists of a set of indicators and diagrams that support the comparison of bottom-up and top-down emission inventories. Four different comparison methods are proposed: (1) pollutant emission comparisons across sectors (bar plot), (2) quantification of the differences between inventories allocated in terms of activity data and emission factors (diamond diagram), (3) emission per capita comparisons (per-capita diagram) and (4) comparison of pollutant ratios (pollutant ratio diagram). The methodology has been tested for an urban emission inventory in Barcelona, and results show the capability of the system to flag inconsistencies in the existing inventories. The strengths and limitations of the tool are presented. The proposed methodology may be useful for regional and urban inventory developers as an initial evaluation of the consistency of their inventories.

Screening indoor air quality evaluation in the Lithuanian theatre, music and cinema museum

Abstract Air pollution is a risk for human health and for the preservation of materials in particular cultural heritage objects. This paper presents the main results obtained in the project carried out by the Lithuanian Theatre, Music and Cinema Museum (LTMCM) and NILU-Norwegian Institute for Air Research. The main goal of the project was to perform a screening study and characterization of the indoor air pollution in the LTMCM. The results are used to assess the indoor air quality with regard to the preservation of cultural heritage objects therein. Measurement of NO2, organic acids (i.e. acetic and formic acids), photo-oxidant effects of the environment, climate (temperature and relative humidity) and particulate matter deposition were performed in different indoor locations. Low concentration of outdoor generated pollutants such as NO2 was found in storage rooms whereas higher concentrations were determined in the in the exhibition area. The results indicate that the building envelope does not protect ...

Webcrawling and machine learning as a new approach for the spatial distribution of atmospheric emissions

In this study we apply two methods for data collection that are relatively new in the field of atmospheric science. The two developed methods are designed to collect essential geo-localized information to be used as input data for a high resolution emission inventory for residential wood combustion (RWC). The first method is a webcrawler that extracts openly online available real estate data in a systematic way, and thereafter structures them for analysis. The webcrawler reads online Norwegian real estate advertisements and it collects the geo-position of the dwellings. Dwellings are classified according to the type (e.g., apartment, detached house) they belong to and the heating systems they are equipped with. The second method is a model trained for image recognition and classification based on machine learning techniques. The images from the real estate advertisements are collected and processed to identify wood burning installations, which are automatically classified according to the three classes used in official statistics, i.e., open fireplaces, stoves produced before 1998 and stoves produced after 1998. The model recognizes and classifies the wood appliances with a precision of 81%, 85% and 91% for open fireplaces, old stoves and new stoves, respectively. Emission factors are heavily dependent on technology and this information is therefore essential for determining accurate emissions. The collected data are compared with existing information from the statistical register at county and national level in Norway. The comparison shows good agreement for the proportion of residential heating systems between the webcrawled data and the official statistics. The high resolution and level of detail of the extracted data show the value of open data to improve emission inventories. With the increased amount and availability of data, the techniques presented here add significant value to emission accuracy and potential applications should also be considered across all emission sectors.

IMPACT LOADS OF AIR POLLUTANTS ON PAINTINGS: PERFORMANCE EVALUATION BY MODELING FOR MICROCLIMATE FRAMES

Abstract Modeling of the transport (fluxes) of gaseous air pollutants to the surfaces of paintings installed inside six different microclimate frames (mc-frames) was performed. Mc-frames are used to protect paintings against the external environment and to provide climate buffering. However, some can trap potentially harmful gases, especially acetic acid, which may be emitted inside the frames. A steady-state mass balance model was used to evaluate how changes in three factors (the ventilation rate, the volume of the mc-frame, and the inclusion of a pollutant absorber) would affect the concentrations of gaseous air pollutants transported to the paintings in the frames. The modeled impact to the paintings was determined to be higher inside than outside for two of six mc-frames when exposed to a 50/50 mixture of acidic (acetic plus formic acid at 100 μg/ m 3 ) and oxidative gases (nitrogen dioxide plus ozone at 2 μg/m 3 ). The concentrations of the pollutants were selected to provide clear degradative effects on the paintings. The modeling indicated the most effective way to reduce the potential pollutant impact on paintings in mc-frames is to reduce both ventilation and volume, and to also install a pollution absorber.