Impact of ethanol containing gasoline blends on emissions from a flex-fuel vehicle tested over the Worldwide Harmonized Light duty Test Cycle (WLTC)

Regulated and unregulated emissions from a Euro 5a flex-fuel vehicle tested with nine different hydrous and anhydrous ethanol containing fuel blends at 23 and -7 °C over the World harmonized Light-duty vehicle Test Cycle (WLTC) and the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC), were investigated at the Vehicle Emission Laboratory (VELA) at the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) Ispra, Italy. The experimental results showed no differences on the regulated and unregulated emissions when hydrous ethanol blends were used instead of anhydrous ethanol blends. The high concentration of ethanol in the blends resulted in a reduction of NOx emissions but increased the emissions of CO, CH4, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and ethanol. The increase of the acetaldehyde and ethanol emissions caused a severe increment of the ozone formation potential. Most of the studied pollutants presented similar emission factors during the tests performed with E10 (gasoline containing 10% of ethanol) and E15 (gasoline containing 15% of ethanol) blends. The emission factors of most unregulated compounds were lower over the NEDC (with ammonia as an exception) than over the WLTC, while, when taking into consideration only the cold start emissions, emission factors over the WLTC were observed to be higher, or similar, to those obtained over the NEDC. Low ambient temperature caused an increase of the emissions of all studied compounds with all tested blends.

SUAREZ BERTOA Ricardo;  ZARDINI Alessandro;  KEUKEN Hans;  ASTORGA-LLORENS Maria; 

2014-12-09

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

JRC91005

0016-2361,   

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236114010710,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC91005,   

10.1016/j.fuel.2014.10.076,