Research report 2005 - Max Planck Institute for Chemistry

Aerosol mass spectrometry – analysis of traffic related particle emissions

Authors
Schneider, Johannes; Drewnick, Frank
Departments

Partikelchemie (Prof. Dr. Stephan Borrmann)
MPI für Chemie, Mainz

Summary
Novel in-situ mass spectrometric techniques offer new possibilities for the investigation of traffic related particle emissions. Measurements performed on an engine test facility showed that ultrafine particles (<100 nm) in diesel exhaust consist of freshly nucleated compounds as sulfuric acid and organics, which have been emitted as gaseous substances. Since it was found that the formation efficiency of these nucleation particles is strongly dependent on the fuel sulfur content, it was concluded that sulfuric acid plays a major role in this process. Measurements of mass concentrations and size distributions of various aerosol compounds in the vicinity of a German motorway and in New York City showed the various influences of traffic emissions on the composition of ambient aerosol in the different size ranges at different times.

For the full text, see the German version.

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