Sizes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon composition distributions of nano, ultrafine, fine, and coarse particulates emitted from a four-stroke motorcycle

Abstract

Thus, this study was undertaken to determine the size distribution, concentration, species, and carcinogenic potency of particulate matter and particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) emitted from 4-st/mc at various speeds (idle, 15 km/h, 30 km/h). Approximately 80% of the particles emitted from the that is, they are primary inhalable particulates. The particle total number concentrations (TNCs) emitted while idling and at 15 and 30 km/h were 2.07 × 104, 2.35 × 104, and 2.60 × 104 #/cm3, respectively; i.e., they increased at elevated speeds. Notably, most of the particles emitted at 30 km/h had diameters of less than 0.65 μm and contained higher percentages of total PAHs. Excluding incomplete combustion, we suspected that some of the lower-molecular-weight PAHs [phenanthrene (PA), anthracene (Ant), pyrene (Pyr)] obtained in the fine particles at idle originated from unburned 95-octane unleaded fuel. When operated at 15 km/h, pyrolysis of the PAHs dominated, resulting in increased amounts of medium-molecular-weight PAHs {fluorene (FL), Pyr, benz[a]anthracene (BaA), chrysene (CHR)} in the ultrafine particles. Furthermore, at 30 km/h, more pyrosynthesis products {benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), indeno[1,2,3,-cd]pyrene (IND), dibenz[a,h]anthracene (DBA)}, induced through combustion at the correspondingly higher temperature, were exhausted with the nanoparticles. Although the total concentrations of BaP-equivalent emissions were inconsistent with the total PAHs, the nanoscale-sized particulates emitted from the 4-st/mc at higher speeds had the strongest PAH-related carcinogenic potencies, which should be a great concern.