Summary

The health impacts of vehicle particulate emissions are of growing concern, particularly in the impact of the smaller sized particles. As new fuels are being introduced it is important to understand the nature of the particulate emissions that they produce - the size distribution and chemical composition. Within this context the IEA AMF Executive Committee has supported a Task which will examine the methods available for measuring particulate size and composition for low emission vehicles, and provide a basic set of measurements for three vehicle/fuel combinations.

The first phase of Task 12 consist of:

- a review of the current state of knowledge on the health impacts of vehicle particulate emissions;
- a survey of previous particulate emissions measurement work on alternative-fuelled vehicles, with a focus on experimental method and inconsistencies between results;
- development of an improved particulate collection technique for use in the experimental work

Phase 1 was completed in time for the Executive Committee meeting in March 1997. The results from Phase 1 were then presented and discussed before moving onto the experimental phase.

The experiments for Phase 2 were carried out on the following vehicle/fuel combinations:

- Euro II light-duty van run on "clean" diesel, e.g. Greenergy City Diesel
- state-of-the-art LPG bi-fuel light-duty van;
- state-of-th-art dedicated CNG light-duty van

Participants

• Belgium
• Canada
• Finland
• Netherlands
• United Kingdom
• USA