Quantification of Local Ozone Production Attributable to Automobile Hydrocarbon Emissions

When automobile hydrocarbons are exhausted into the atmosphere in the presence of NO_x and sunlight, ground-level ozone is formed. While researchers have used Maximum Incremental Reactivity (MIR) factors to estimate ozone production, this procedure often overestimates Local Ozone Production (LOP) because it does not consider local atmospheric conditions. In this paper, an enhanced MIR methodology for estimating actual LOP attributable to a vehicle in a particular ozone problem area is presented. In addition to using tabulated MIR factors, the procedure also uses local hydrocarbon reaction terms and a relative mechanistic reactivity term that account for local atmospheric conditions. Through this approach, the effects of hydrocarbon reaction rates, hydrocarbon residence times, and prevailing HC/NO_x ratio are accounted for. The procedure is intended to enable automotive engineers to more realistically estimate actual local ozone production resulting from hydrocarbon emissions.