Development of a portable sampler to capture exhaust emissions from diesel cycle vehicles
Portable vehicular sampler, prototyping, atmospheric emissions, carbon dioxide.
In recent years, it has been recognized that vehicular emissions have perfomed a fundamental role in climate change, air pollution and the causes of human diseases linked to the emissions of pollutants such as: nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon dioxide (CO2), volatile organic compounds (VOC), carbon monoxide (CO), and black carbon (BC). These emissions come mainly from heavy vehicles, powered by diesel oil. Due to the rapid growth of the vehicle fleet in the world and the strong dependence on the road modal for the transport of cargo and passengers, gas emissions in developing countries have been growing strongly, which is negatively affecting many populations. The control and inspection of emissions in this segment is ineffective, since there is not enough manpower or the use of analytical methods capable of identifying and quantifying all pollutants emitted via vehicle exhaust during the evaluation of vehicle conditions. In view of this, this work proposed the development of a portable sampler to capture exhaust emissions from diesel cycle vehicles, both for sampling the gaseous fraction and the particulate fraction, in order to allow the identification and quantification of the compounds present in both phases. As a model analyte for the development and optimization of sampling conditions, carbon dioxide gas was selected, as it is a greenhouse gas and is in high concentration in this emission. From research in the literature and different vehicle evaluation standards, models for the sampler were designed until reaching a model to be prototyped according to the precepts of agile prototyping. Real application tests were carried out with bus transport to optimize the application procedure. The portable sampler is a sustainable product, with low noise, easy cost or that does not require electrical energy for maintenance, calibrations for its operation. A method for CO2 determination by gas chromatography with a dielectric barrier discharge ionization detector (GC/BID) was developed. A scan of compounds was performed by means of two-dimensional gas chromatography with flame ionization detector (GCxGC/FID) to indicate other pollutants that can be studied in sequence to this study, bringing versatility to the application of this sustainable product.