Characterization of Tailpipe Exhaust Particles Using a Rotating Disc Diluter and a Volatility Tandem DMA (v-TDMA)

A v-TDMA instrument has been used to study the tailpipe exhaust particles of a heavy-duty Diesel engine equipped with a continuously regenerating trap (CRT) running at two different steady state conditions: high speed / medium load and medium speed / high load. The sample was extracted directly out of the engine and conditioned by use of a rotating disc diluter. This paper deals with measurements where the parallel mode of the v-TDMA instrument was used. A temperature of 350 °C was applied in the heated section of the v-TDMA to study the thermal stability of the particles. Dilution between 86 and 1740 times were applied to see if the amount of dilution affected the particle behavior. The CRT reduces the number concentration of accumulation mode particles by 90%. When using the CRT, high numbers of nucleation mode particles are measured that can be volatilized at 350° in the v-TDMA instrument. For nucleation mode particles, changing the dilution from 86 to 386 times can suppress particle formation by up to 90%. The present work shows that the rotating disc diluter together with the v-TDMA instrument are promising tools for study of exhaust particles sampled directly out of the engine.