Monitoring the soot emissions of passing cars.
We report on the first application of a novel fast on-road sensing method for measurement of particulate emissions of individual passing passenger cars. The studywas motivated by the shift of interest from gases to particles in connection with strong adverse health effects. The results correspond very much to findings by Beaton et al. (Science, May 19,1995) for gaseous hydrocarbon and CO emissions: A small percentage of "superpolluters" (here 5%) account for a high percentage (here 43%) of the pollution (here elemental carbon). We estimate that up to 50% of the particulate emissions of vehicles could be avoided on the basis of the present legislation, if on-road monitoring would be applied to enforce maintenance. Our fast sensing method for particles is based on photoelectron emission from the emitted airborne soot particles in combination with a CO2 sensor delivering a reference.
Kurniawan
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Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Nanostructured Materials, Julianalaan 136, NL-2628BL Delft, The Netherlands.
Schmidt-Ott
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D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D001336:Automobiles; D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D002244:Carbon / Q000032:analysis*; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000032:analysis; D002248:Carbon Monoxide / Q000032:analysis*; D010316:Particle Size; D013997:Time Factors; D001335:Vehicle Emissions / Q000032:analysis*
D000393:Air Pollutants; D001335:Vehicle Emissions; D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D002244:Carbon; D002248:Carbon Monoxide