Measurements of particulate mass concentration using a tapered-element oscillating microbalance and a flame ionization detector

Abstract

Measurement of particulate mass concentration in the exhaust of automotive engines by means of the filter sampling method prescribed by the USA's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is tedious, costly, time consuming and labour intensive. This paper presents a new approach, which is capable of measuring real-time particulate mass emissions in the exhaust of a diesel engine by using a tapered-element oscillating microbalance (TEOM) and a fast-response flame ionization detector (FID). The measuring principle rests on the fact that, by operating the TEOM at 50 °C, water interference is minimized, albeit at the expense of reducing the hydrocarbon content condensed on the particles. This is corrected by a method that consists of a measurement of hydrocarbon gas concentration, used with an empirical correction factor to recover what the filter sampling method would produce. The time resolution for the measurement using this new method is limited by the sampling window of the TEOM which is 0.42 s, though the response of the FID offers a time resolution of milliseconds. Results show that the mass concentration of particulate matter measured by TEOM and FID is well correlated to that based on the conventional EPA filter sampling method. Keywords: particulate mass concentration, tapered-element oscillating microbalance, flame ionization detector, diesel exhaust particulate measurement, correlation to EPA (USA) standard

The organic composition of diesel particulate matter, diesel fuel and engine oil of a non-road diesel generator

“…23 Chan and He reported that the DPM mass concentration from the Ford FSD 425T turbocharged DI diesel engine (four-cylinder, direct injection, 800-4000 rpm, maximum power output 52 kW) was from 0.2 mg m À3 to more than a hundred mg m À3 at zero load condition. 24 In addition, the DPM emissions from diesel vehicles are often reported as mass per mile, which further complicates the comparison. 1, and the compounds labeled ''Nd'' (not detected) can be either below the detection limit or not present in the sample.…”

Emissions Characteristics of a Diesel Engine Fueled with Biodiesel and Fumigation Methanol

“…The exhaust gas from the engine was diluted with a Dekati mini-diluter before passing through the SMPS and the TEOM. The SMPS has been widely applied in the investigation of particulate emissions. , The TEOM can be applied to measure real time mass concentration of particulate in the engine exhaust. , …”

Diesel soot mass calculation in real-time with a differential mobility spectrometer

“…Firstly, a tapered element oscillating microbalance (TEOM) can be used to measure real-time mass concentrations (Chan & He, 1999;Morawska, Johnson, Ristovski, & Agranovski, 1999;Saito & Shinozaki, 1990). However, like filter measurements, the TEOM is affected by sampling artefacts and cannot provide size-resolved data.…”