Article | REF: BM2506 V1

Polluting discharges of heat engines - testing procedures

Author: Anne JAECKER-VOIROL

Publication date: July 10, 2009, Review date: June 1, 2019

You do not have access to this resource.
Click here to request your free trial access!

Already subscribed? Log in!


Overview

Français

ABSTRACT

In the years to come, the number of vehicles and the related needs in energy are bound to increase in emerging countries and others. The improvement of the quality of the air in cities must be achieved through a decrease in the concentration of nitrogen oxides. More specifically, pollution in the large urban areas of industrial countries has become a major concern, which is mainly linked to the increase in road traffic. it must be noted that the air quality standards are increasingly strict and oblige manufacturers to conduct regulated testing procedures. This article presents the current state of threshold values for the various countries, pollutants, types of vehicles and engines concerned.

Read this article from a comprehensive knowledge base, updated and supplemented with articles reviewed by scientific committees.

Read the article

AUTHOR

  • Anne JAECKER-VOIROL: Doctorate in Physical Chemistry from the Université Louis-Pasteur in Strasbourg, qualified to direct research. - Research engineer at IFP - Former head of the "Automobile Pollution" laboratory

 INTRODUCTION

Man and pollution are intimately linked, but our perception of it has changed considerably over the centuries. From episodic phenomena linked to particular meteorological situations, we now know that pollution is more insidious, and that even background pollution can have consequences in terms of public health.

From the 1980s onwards, photochemical pollution, or the increase in ozone concentration in large urban areas, became a major issue. At the same time, measurement networks developed and evolved. Since the 1950s, these networks have focused on pollutants produced by the combustion of fixed installations, i.e. black smoke, SO 2 . They are now moving towards measurements of nitrogen oxides NOx (NO and NO 2 ) initially, then ozone O 3 and particulates with PM 10 (particles with diameters less than 10 μm).

Air quality standards are becoming increasingly stringent. For example, the annual average not to be exceeded in France for NO 2 is 48 μg/m 3 for 2006, and it will have to be 40 μg/m 3 in 2010.

Ozone (O 3 ), a secondary pollutant derived exclusively from the photolysis of NO 2 , is also particularly closely monitored.

In the major conurbations of industrialized countries, this pollution is mainly due to the increase in road traffic, and although vehicle emission standards have evolved considerably, ozone pollution is still a problem. Often, the sharp reduction in emissions is offset by the increase in traffic.

What's more, all the world's weather stations are recording an increase in average temperature (+0.5°C to +0.7°C since 1860). At the same time, many glaciers are retreating or even disappearing. In 1995, an IPCC report confirmed the influence of human activities on climate change, and put forward the hypothesis of an average warming of 1 to 3.5°C by 2100, which would lead to a sea-level rise of 15 to 95 cm. The 3rd United Nations Climate Change Conference in Kyoto sees the adoption of a protocol to the Climate Convention, known as the "Kyoto Protocol". It commits 38 industrialized countries, including the United States (which will denounce it in 2001), Canada, Japan, the countries...

You do not have access to this resource.

Exclusive to subscribers. 97% yet to be discovered!

You do not have access to this resource.
Click here to request your free trial access!

Already subscribed? Log in!


The Ultimate Scientific and Technical Reference

A Comprehensive Knowledge Base, with over 1,200 authors and 100 scientific advisors
+ More than 10,000 articles and 1,000 how-to sheets, over 800 new or updated articles every year
From design to prototyping, right through to industrialization, the reference for securing the development of your industrial projects

This article is included in

Vehicules and mobility

This offer includes:

Knowledge Base

Updated and enriched with articles validated by our scientific committees

Services

A set of exclusive tools to complement the resources

Practical Path

Operational and didactic, to guarantee the acquisition of transversal skills

Doc & Quiz

Interactive articles with quizzes, for constructive reading

Subscribe now!

Ongoing reading
Pollutant emissions from internal combustion engines