Innovative gasoline formulations have the potential to cause volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions of concern at the tailpipe. This is led primarily by the substitution of a proportion of the standard gasoline with bio-derived alcohols, due to the pressure for carbon dioxide emissions reductions and also high oil prices. A consequence of this may be to create elevated emissions of formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and related compounds, which have a range of negative human health effects, including respiratory irritation and raising cancer risk. This presentation will show results from real-world testing of a wide range of VOC emissions, across different gasoline blends across multiple vehicle models. The testing uses an innovative portable sampling device developed by Emissions Analytics that harnessing a proportional dilution system coupled with an array of sample tubes and automatical geofencing to segment samples from urban, rural and motorway driving onto different tubes. At the end of the test, the tubes are thermally desorped into a two-dimensional gas chromatography system and time-of-flight mass spectrometer to separate, identify and quantify the complete range of VOCs. As a result, similarities and differences between different gasoline formulations in different vehicles will be shown, with particular focus on elevated aldehyde emissions due to the alcohol content in the fuel blend, relevant for future policy around fuel standards and tailpipe emissions.
Session:
Poster
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