Assessment of Particle Pollution from Jetliners: from Smoke Visibility to Nanoparticle Counting

Abstract

Aviation is a substantial and a fast growing emissions source. Besides greenhouse gases, aircraft engines emit black carbon (BC), a climate forcer and air pollutant. Aviation BC emissions have been regulated and estimated through exhaust smoke visibility (smoke number). Their impacts are poorly understood because emission inventories lack representative data. Here, we measured BC mass and number-based emissions of the most popular airliner's engines according to a new emission standard. We used a calibrated engine performance model to determine the emissions on the ground, at cruise altitude, and over entire flight missions. Compared to previous estimates, we found up to a factor of 4 less BC mass emitted from the standardized landing and takeoff cycle and up to a factor of 40 less during taxiing. However, the taxi phase accounted for up to 30% of the total BC number emissions. Depending on the fuel composition and flight distance, the mass and number-based emission indices (/kg fuel burned) were 6.2-14.7 mg and 2.8 × 10 - 8.7 × 10, respectively. The BC mass emissions per passenger-km were similar to gasoline vehicles, but the number-based emissions were relatively higher, comparable to old diesel vehicles. This study provides representative data for models and will lead to more accurate assessments of environmental impacts of aviation.

Chemical composition, optical properties and radiative forcing efficiency of nascent particulate matter emitted by an aircraft turbofan burning conventional and alternative fuels

“…S10). The slight increase in the mass concentrations between taxi and ground idle (3% thrust) has been observed in previous works (Durdina et al, 2017) and is associated with a 25 decrease in the combustion efficiency and the air/fuel ratio. The use of the 32% HEFA blend induced a clear reduction in the EC concentrations at all thrust levels, in line with previous findings (Moore et al, 2015, Brem et al, 2015Moore et al, 2017;Schripp et al, 2018).…”

“…Thus, a correction to take into account the atmospheric conditions at flight altitude is necessary. However, as shown in Durdina et al (2017) using data from a turbofan engine representative of modern commercially engines (Howard et al, 1996), the altitude does not significantly influence the PM size distributions. Hence we can assume the altitude correction for the optical properties to be minor as well.…”

Nonvolatile Particulate Matter Emissions of a Business Jet Measured at Ground Level and Estimated for Cruising Altitudes

“…The engine was fueled with military-grade JP-8 fuel, which has nearly the same specifications as the commercial Jet A-1 but contains the following additives: a lubricity enhancer (0.1% mass), an icing inhibitor (0.1% volume), and a static dissipater (ppm level). 30 The fuel batch used fulfilled the requirements for 92 the fuel used in aircraft turbine engine emission testing according to Appendix 4 of the ICAO SMARTEMIS connected to the probe is compliant with the new nvPM emissions certification standard and was described in detail previously 18,20,22,31 . Briefly, the probe was connected to a 5.…”

Natural, incidental, and engineered nanomaterials and their impacts on the Earth system

“…3 will continue to increase through the middle of this century (Fig. 5) (116)(117)(118)(119)(120)(121)(122)(123)(124). Also, the amount of nanomaterials in these emissions will be considerable.…”