Tailpipe emission characterizations of diesel-fueled forklifts under real-world operations using a portable emission measurement system

Abstract

Non-road equipment is one of the key contributing sources to air pollution. Thus, an accurate development of emission inventory from non-road equipment is imperative for air quality management, especially for equipment with a large population such as diesel-fueled forklifts. The objective of this paper is to characterize duty-cycle based emissions from diesel-fueled forklifts using a portable emission measurement system (PEMS). Three duty-cycles were defined in this study, including idling, moving, and working (active duty operation) and used to characterize in-use emissions for diesel-fueled forklifts. A total of twelve diesel-fueled forklifts were selected for real-world emission measurements. Results showed that fuel-based emission factors appear to have smaller variability compared to time-based ones. For example, the time-based emission factors for CO, HC, NO, and PM2.5 for forklifts were estimated to be 16.6–43.9, 5.3–15.1, 26.2–49.9, 5.5–11.1 g/hr with the fuel-based emission factors being 12.1–20.3, 4.1–8.3, 19.1–32.4, 3.5–6.5 g/kg-fuel, respectively. NO emissions appear to be the biggest concern for emissions control. Furthermore, most of the emissions factors estimated from this study are significantly different from those in both National Guideline for Emission Inventory Development for Non-Road Equipment in China and well-developed emission factor models such as NONROAD by US EPA. This implies that localized, preferably fuel-based emission factors should be adjusted based on real-world emission measurements in order to develop a representative emission inventory for non-road equipment.