Physical and chemical properties of RME biodiesel exhaust particles without engine modifications

Abstract

A major contributor to ambient particulate air pollution is exhaust from diesel engines and other vehicles, which can be linked to different adverse health effects. During the last decades, a global drive towards finding sustainable and clean bio-based alternative fuels for the transport sector has taken place and biodiesel is one of the most established alternatives today. To better assess the overall effects on a public health level when introducing biodiesel and other renewable fuels, a better understanding of the detailed exhaust particle properties, is needed. In this work, the physical and chemical properties of biodiesel exhaust particles were studied in comparison to standard diesel exhaust emissions, in an existing engine without modifications, focusing on particulate carbonaceous matter and PAH/Oxy-PAH as well as fine particle size distribution. An older off-road engine, produced between 1996 and 2004, was used with three different fuels/fuel blends; (1) 100wt% low-sulfur standard petro diesel (SD), (2) 100wt% rapeseed methyl ester biodiesel (B100) and (3) a blended fuel – B30 consisting of 30wt% RME and 70wt% SD. The study focused mainly on emissions from transient engine operation, but includes also idling conditions. The gaseous emissions measured for the biodiesel fuel were in general in accordance with previous reported data in the literature, and compared to the standard petro diesel the emissions of CO was lower while NOx emissions increased. The particulate mass concentration during transient operation was almost halved compared to when petro diesel was used and this was associated with a decrease in average particle size. The shift in particle mass and size was associated with a higher fraction of organic matter in general, considerable less PAH’s but a relative higher fraction of Oxy-PAH’s, when shifting from petro diesel to biodiesel.