Speciation of Hydrocarbon Emissions from a Medium Duty Diesel Engine

Growing concern over ground-level ozone and its role in smog formation has resulted in extensive investigation into identifying ozone sources. Motor vehicle exhaust, specifically oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons, have been identified as major ozone precursors in urban areas. Past research has concentrated on assessing the impact of emissions from gasoline fueled light duty vehicles. However, little work has been done on identifying ozone precursors from medium and heavy duty diesel fueled vehicles. This paper presents the results of testing performed on a Navistar T 444E 190 horsepower diesel engine which is certified as a light/heavy-duty emissions classification and is used in medium duty trucks up to 11,800 kg (26,000 lb) GVW. Regulated emissions and speciated hydrocarbon emissions were collected using a filter, bag and Tenax adsorption cartridges for both steady state and transient engine operation. Gaseous and semi volatile emissions were analyzed using Varian 3600 gas chromatographs. Using existing ozone reactivity data, ozone formation potentials of non-methane organic gases for each mode of operation were obtained. It was found that low carbon number alkenes were the most significant ozone precursors.