Evaluation of heavy-duty vehicle emission controls with a decade of California real-world observations

• Published in: Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association (1995) 2021-10, Vol.71 (10), p.1277-1291
• Main Authors: Ruehl, Chris, Misra, Chandan, Yoon, Seungju, Smith, Jeremy D., Burnitzki, Mark, Hu, Shaohua, Collins, John, Tan, Yi, Huai, Tao, Herner, Jorn
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1096-2247; 2162-2906
• DOI: 10.1080/10962247.2021.1890277

Over the past decade, efforts to reduce emissions of particulate matter (PM) and oxides of nitrogen (NO + NO 2 , or NO x ) from heavy-duty diesel vehicles (HDDVs) have led to the widespread adoption of both Diesel Particulate Filters (DPFs) to control PM and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) to control NO x . We evaluated the performance of DPFs and SCR with 13,327 real-world fuel-based Black Carbon (BC) and NO x emission factors from 9,167 unique heavy-duty vehicles (primarily HDDVs) measured at four sites in California (two ports, two highways) from 2011 to 2018. BC emission factors have decreased by 90% during the past decade. At the same time, BC distributions have become increasingly skewed toward "high-emitters" - e.g., the portion of the HDDV fleet responsible for half of all BC emissions has decreased from ~16% to ~3%. NO x emission factors have also decreased over the past decade, but by only 31%. They remain roughly five times greater than in-use thresholds.We examined changes in BC and NO x emissions with engine age. BC emissions from DPF-only trucks decreased slightly but insignificantly, by 6 ± 15 mg/kg fuel per year, while for DPF+SCR trucks they increased by 5 ± 3. These changes are less than 5% of in-use thresholds. The annual increase in NO x emissions with age was much greater: 1.44 ± 0.28 g/kg for older SCR trucks without on-board diagnostic (OBD) capabilities and 0.48 ± 0.35 for newer trucks with OBD, roughly 20- 50% of in-use thresholds. Paired t-tests on the over 600 vehicles that were observed in multiple campaigns were consistent with these results. Observed changes in BC emissions with age were best fit with a "gross emitter" model assuming an annual DPF failure rate of 0.83 ± 0.01% for DPF-only trucks and 0.56 ± 0.01% for DPF+SCR trucks.Implications: These observations of real-world HDV emission factors have several major implications for regulatory efforts to reduce them. The increasing importance of a relatively small number of high BC emitters suggests that widespread sampling of the on-road fleet will be necessary to identify these vehicles. On the other hand, the much more ubiquitous deterioration in NO x control measures may be better addressed by incorporating on-board diagnostic systems, with telematic data transfer when possible, into inspection and maintenance programs. These NO x observations also highlight the need for strengthening heavy-duty SCR durability demonstration requirements.