Primary Particulate Matter from Ocean-Going Engines in the Southern California Air Basin

Abstract

The impact of primary fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from ship emissions within the Southern California Air Basin is quantified by comparing in-stack vanadium (V) and nickel (Ni) measurements from in-use ocean-going vessels (OGVs) with ambient measurements made at 10 monitoring stations throughout Southern California. V and Ni are demonstrated as robust markers for the combustion of heavy fuel oil in OGVs, and ambient measurements of fine particulate V and Ni within Southern California are shown to decrease inversely with increased distance from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach (ports). High levels of V and Ni were observed from in-stack emission measurements conducted on the propulsion engines of two different in-use OGVs. The in-stack V and Ni emission rates (g/h) normalized by the V and Ni contents in the fuel tested correlates with the stack total PM emission rates (g/h). The normalized emission rates are used to estimate the primary PM2.5 contributions from OGVs at 10 monitoring locations within Southern California. Primary PM2.5 contributions from OGVs were found to range from 8.8% of the total PM2.5 at the monitoring location closest to the port (West Long Beach) to 1.4% of the total PM2.5 at the monitoring location 80 km inland (Rubidoux). The calculated OGV contributions to ambient PM2.5 measurements at the 10 monitoring sites agree well with estimates developed using an emission inventory based regional model. Results of this analysis will be useful in determining the impacts of primary particulate emissions from OGVs upon worldwide communities downwind of port operations.

Identification and quantification of shipping emissions in Bohai Rim, China

“…In this study, value of b r N was 8205.8 ppm according to Agrawal et al (2009), and the value of bFV, HFO N was 65.3 ppm referred to the average vanadium content in the 25 HFO samples collected from China Marine Bunker by Zhao et al (2013a). To quantify the contribution of primary PM 2.5 estimate (PM a ) to primary PM 2.5 in the ambient air, the main secondary components such as NH 4 + , NO 3 − , SO 4 2 − and SOA (Duan et al, 2007) were neglected.…”

“…In this study, we assumed that 85% of V in PM 2.5 was from residual fuel oils of shipping emissions. In order to quantify the contribution of shipping emissions to PM 2.5 at Tuoji Island, a simple model developed by Agrawal et al (2009) were used in this study:…”

“…In addition to the differences of calculation methods, it always had a decreased trend of contribution of shipping emissions to PM 2.5 with far away from the port. In addition, a study (Agrawal et al, 2009) had shown that the contribution of primary PM 2.5 estimate of shipping emissions to total PM 2.5 in ambient air was rapidly decreased from 8.8% to 1.4% when it came from the port to 80 km away from the port. Because there were much more ships in port and the exhaust emissions had direct influence on ambient air, but as far away from the port.…”

“…Due to its complex mechanism and high absorption capacity for toxic chemicals, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, PM exhausted by ships could cause more serious human health risk than by direct emissions (EPA, 2009). Various researcher across the world reported the contribution of shipping emissions to ambient air pollution (Agrawal et al, 2009;Isakson et al, 2001;Moreno et al, 2009;Pandolfi et al, 2011;Pey et al, 2013). Majority of studies was based on multivariate analysis of V and Ni which confirmed the tracers of shipping emissions.…”

Impact of maritime traffic on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, metals and particulate matter in Venice air

“…The primary contribution of ship traffic to PM 2.5 can be evaluated using atmospheric vanadium as tracer for ship traffic and by applying the equation (2), first introduced by Agrawal et al (2009).…”