Monitoring Euro 6 diesel passenger cars NOx emissions for one year in various ambient conditions with PEMS and NOx sensors

Petri Söderena*, Juhani Laurikko, Christian Weber, Aki Tilli, Keijo Kuikka, Anu Kousa, Outi Väkevä, Antti Venho, Suvi Haaparanta, Jukka Nuottimäki

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

    25 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    In this study, the NOx emissions of four Euro 6 diesel passenger cars ranging from Euro 6 b to Euro 6 d-TEMP in different ambient conditions and driving routes were investigated with a Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS) and continuous NOx concentration monitoring device. A model was also generated for translating NOx concentration values into a gram basis. The results suggest that there is a marked difference in NOx emissions based on the Euro 6 step for the car is type approved. The study showed that the conformity factor for NOx emissions on a route in a city environment (“City route”) changed from 0.65 to 5.2 depending on the Euro 6 step and car. Surprisingly, a Euro 6 b car equipped with Selective Catalytic Reduction SCR system and updated engine control unit (ECU) software for lower tailpipe NOx emissions provided lower average NOx emissions than a Euro 6 d-TEMP diesel car equipped with dual lean-NOx traps. Results for the City route also showed that the road infrastructure (crossroads and speed limitations) can have a noticeable effect on promoting driving that leads to higher NOx emissions even with a Euro 6 d-TEMP car. Estimations of NOx emissions with modelling based on continuous NOx concentration monitoring suggested that Euro 6 b diesel cars can provide NOx emissions close to the current RDE legislation. In addition, the modelling suggested that the Euro 6 b car with updated ECU software and the Euro 6 d-TEMP diesel car are capable of extremely low daily average NOx emissions, even close to 20 mg/km, in normal daily usage. Nevertheless, the monitoring results and model also suggest that cold ambient temperature has a high effect on the NOx emissions reduction performance of these vehicles, occasionally increasing their daily average emissions to as high as 900 mg/km.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number140971
    JournalScience of the Total Environment
    Volume746
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2020
    MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

    Funding

    This study was funded through research cooperation between VTT, the Institute of Transport Economics and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, City of Helsinki, Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, Environmental Services Authority HSY and with the support of Neste Oyj.

    Keywords

    • City driving
    • Cold temperature
    • NO emissions modelling
    • On-road emissions
    • On-road monitoring

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