Emission factors for a biofuel impacted fleet in South America's largest metropolitan area

Abstract

The Metropolitan Area of São Paulo (MASP) is among the largest urban areas in the Southern Hemisphere. Vehicular emissions are of great concern in metropolitan areas and MASP is unique due to the use of biofuels on a large scale (sugarcane ethanol and biodiesel). In this work, tunnel measurements were employed to assess vehicle emissions and to calculate emission factors (EFs) for heavy-duty and light-duty vehicles (HDVs and LDVs). The EFs were determined for particulate matter (PM) and its chemical compounds. The EFs obtained for 2018 were compared with previous tunnel experiments performed in the same area. An overall trend of reduction of fine and coarse PM, organic carbon (OC), and elemental carbon (EC) EFs for both LDVs and HDVs was observed if compared to those observed in past years, suggesting the effectiveness of vehicular emissions control policies implemented in Brazil. A predominance of Fe, Cu, Al, and Ba emissions was observed for the LDV fleet in the fine fraction. Cu presented higher emissions than two decades ago, which was associated with the increased use of ethanol fuel in the region. For HDVs, Zn and Pb were mostly emitted in the fine mode and were linked with lubricating oil emissions from diesel vehicles. A predominance in the emission of three- and four-ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) for HDVs and five-ring PAHs for LDVs agreed with what was observed in previous studies. The use of biofuels may explain the lower PAH emissions for LDVs (including carcinogenic benzo[a]pyrene) compared to those observed in other countries. The tendency observed was that LDVs emitted higher amounts of carcinogenic species. The use of these real EFs in air quality modeling resulted in more accurate simulations of PM concentrations, showing the importance of updating data with real-world measurements.