• Energy Research

Aromatic hydrocarbons (AHs) are both hazardous air pollutants and important precursors to ozone and secondary organic aerosols. Here we investigated 14 C6-C9 AHs at one urban, one suburban and two rural sites in the Pearl River Delta region during November-December 2009. The ratios of individual aromatics to acetylene were compared among these contrasting sites to indicate their difference in source contributions from solvent use and vehicle emissions. Ratios of toluene to benzene (T/B) in urban (1.8) and suburban (1.6) were near that of vehicle emissions. Higher T/B of 2.5 at the rural site downwind the industry zones reflected substantial contribution of solvent use while T/B of 0.8 at the upwind rural site reflected the impact of biomass burning. Source apportionment by positive matrix factorization (PMF) revealed that solvent use, vehicle exhaust and biomass burning altogether accounted for 89-94% of observed AHs. Vehicle exhaust was the major source for benzene with a share of 43-70% and biomass burning in particular contributed 30% to benzene in the upwind rural site; toluene, C8-aromatics and C9-aromatics, however, were mainly from solvent use, with contribution percentages of 47-59%, 52-59% and 41-64%, respectively.

In many cities worldwide, modern fleets have been introduced to reduce gaseous and particle emissions from city buses. To date, most emission studies are limited to a few vehicles, making a statistically significant assessment of control options difficult, especially under real-world driving conditions. Exhaust emissions of 234 individual city buses were measured under real-world stop-and-go traffic conditions at a bus stop in Gothenburg, Sweden. The buses comprised models fulfilling Euro III-VI and EEV (Enhanced Environmentally Friendly Vehicle) standards with different engine technologies, fuels, and exhaust after-treatment systems, and also included hybrid-electric buses (HEV). Both gaseous (NOx, CO, HC, and SO2) and size-resolved particle number (PN) and mass (PM) emission factors (EF) were calculated for vehicles using compressed natural gas (CNG), diesel (DSL), Rapeseed Methyl Ester (RME) and Hydro-treated Vegetable Oil (HVO) equipped with various after-treatment technologies, e.g., diesel particulate filter (DPF), selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) systems. The highest median EFPN was obtained from Euro VHEV-HVO-SCR buses (MdEFPN = 18×1014 # kg-1) when their combustion engines were used though 53% of their accelerations were below detection limits indicating the use of their electrical engine. The highest MdEFPM was obtained from the Euro V-DSL-SCR buses (MdEFPM = 150 mg kg-1) and the lowest from EEV-CNG buses (below detection threshold) and Euro VIHEV-HVO- SCR+EGR+DPF buses (MdEFPM = 19 mg kg-1). The highest MdEFNOx was obtained from the Euro V-RME-SCR (MdEFNOx = 30 g kg-1) and Euro VHEV-HVO-SCR buses (MdEFNOx = 24 g kg-1), and the lowest from CNG buses (MdEFNOx = 4.8 g kg-1) and Euro VIHEV-HVO-SCR+EGR+DPF buses (MdEFNOx = 7.4 g kg-1). Hybrid buses can give higher PN emissions compared to traditional diesel engines, likely due to downsized combustion engines. Replacing diesel by biodiesel fuel reduced MdEFPM significantly but increased MdEFNOx which may be due to the higher combustion temperature and oxygen contents of the fuel (for RME). Overall, the EEV-CNG buses performed the best regarding both the MdEF and low contribution to the high emitters. It was also found that a small (5%) proportion of the buses contributed significantly (14-30%) to the total emissions. Identification and monitoring the maintenance of the high emitters in the fleets should be considered for the improvement of air quality. Keywords: Vehicle emissions, Emission factor, Roadside measurement, Hybrid-electric vehicles (HEV), Rapeseed methyl ester (RME), Hydro-treated vegetable oil (HVO), Compressed natural gas (CNG)

Fine particulate samples were simultaneously collected at six sites in Guangzhou in November-December 2009. Eighteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and tracers, i.e. hopanes, elemental carbon, picene and levoglucosan were measured. Three high level episodes were observed during the sampling period, likely due to accumulation effects. Back trajectory analysis revealed that the air masses for the three episodes were from eastern inland Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. There was no obvious concentration gradient for total and 5-6 ring PAHs such as benzo[g,h,i]perylene (BghiP) from urban to rural sites. However, 4-ring PAHs such as pyrene (Pyr) exhibited significantly higher levels at rural site than that at urban/suburban sites (p<0.01). BghiP correlated well with hopanes, elemental carbon and picene, indicating vehicular emissions and coal combustion were the sources of 5-6 ring PAHs, which were further confirmed by comparing the four tracers/BghiP ratios and IcdP/BghiP ratios in ambient samples with those from source profiles. Results indicated that vehicular emissions were no longer the dominant sources in winter season in Guangzhou.

From 28 November to 23 December 2009, 24-h PM2.5 samples were collected simultaneously at six sites in Guangzhou. Concentrations of 18 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) together with certain molecular tracers for vehicular emissions (i.e., hopanes and elemental carbon), coal combustion (i.e., picene), and biomass burning (i.e., levoglucosan) were determined. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) receptor model combined with tracer data was applied to explore the source contributions to PAHs. Three sources were identified by both inspecting the dominant tracer(s) in each factor and comparing source profiles derived from PMF with determined profiles in Guangzhou or in the Pearl River Delta region. The three sources identified were vehicular emissions (VE), biomass burning (BB), and coal combustion (CC), accounting for 11 ± 2%, 31 ± 4%, and 58 ± 4% of the total PAHs, respectively. CC replaced VE to become the most important source of PAHs in Guangzhou, reflecting the effective control of VE in recent years. The three sources had different contributions to PAHs with different ring sizes, with higher BB contributions (75 ± 3%) to four-ring PAHs such as pyrene and higher CC contributions (57 ± 4%) to six-ring PAHs such as benzo[ghi]perylene. Temporal variations of VE and CC contributions were probably caused by the change of weather conditions, while temporal variations of BB contributions were additionally influenced by the fluctuation of BB emissions. Source contributions also showed some spatial variations, probably due to the source emission variations near the sampling sites.