Abstract
Vehicles operating in dense traffic take their cabin air from the low diluted exhaust gas cloud produced by other cars or trucks running ahead of them. They usually take it at a low level where the particle concentration and the concentration of heavy gases like NO2 are still high. Cabin air is thus collecting and storing emission peaks and air pollution in car cabins can therefore be extremely high - often ten times higher than even at roadside. Drivers commuting in big cities, taxi drivers, truckers and school buses might be exposed to this high pollution for several hours per working day, a group put at very high health risk.Cabin air of today’s vehicles usually passes a filter, but these filters are designed for visible road dust and pollen and according to the existing standards filtration of particles < 1 μm is very low. Lung penetration however, only starts < 0.5 μm. In the long run this could be changed by installing different filter systems, but what about the existing fleet? A filter system has been developed to reduce the concentration of ambient ultrafine particles in vehicle cabin air of in-use vehicles to very low levels, which is presented here.
Highlights
Health effects of inhaled particles depend to a large effect on particle size, since only particles < 500 nm can penetrate the alveoli, enter the blood stream and are translocated to organs, even to the brain [1,2,3]; Premature mortality due to ultrafine particles is very high, there is epidemiologic evidence for high cardiovascular mortality, cerebrovascular mortality and cancer [7] - they were classified carcinogenic class 1 by IARC/WHO in 2012
Health effects are not taken into account yet. This is demonstrated by figure 1, where the particle number concentration outside and inside a modern car is plotted during a journey in the vicinity of Zürich
Air pollution in vehicle cabins is a big thread to a large group of people who are forced to commute in densely populated megacities day by day
Summary
Health effects of inhaled particles depend to a large effect on particle size, since only particles < 500 nm can penetrate the alveoli, enter the blood stream and are translocated to organs, even to the brain [1,2,3]; Premature mortality due to ultrafine particles is very high, there is epidemiologic evidence for high cardiovascular mortality, cerebrovascular mortality and cancer [7] - they were classified carcinogenic class 1 by IARC/WHO in 2012. Fruin [9] shows a 15 times increased concentration inside cars compared to the roadside which was confirmed by Airparif-Studies [10]. This is demonstrated by figure 1, where the particle number concentration outside and inside a modern car is plotted during a journey in the vicinity of Zürich.
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