Title

Effects Of Biodiesel, Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel And Conventional Diesel On Emissions From Orange County School Bus Fleet

Keywords

Biodiesel; Emissions; School bus; Ultra low sulfur diesel

Abstract

Orange County, FL has been experiencing ozone concentrations in the past several years which in some cases exceeded the national and state standards. The high concentration of ground level ozone can cause a variety of health problems including chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, and congestion or it can worsen bronchitis, emphysema, and asthma. Other effects include reduction of agricultural crop and commercial forest yields, lower growth and survivability of tree seedlings, and higher susceptibility of plant to diseases, pests and other stresses such as harsh weather. Ozone generation rate is directly related to the ambient concentration of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic carbons (VOCs). These two air pollutants, mostly produced from combustion of fossil fuels, react with oxygen to form ozone in presence of sunlight. In urban areas, ozone generation rate can be decreased by reduction of ozone precursors, NOx and VOCs. Air Quality Research group of University of Central Florida proposed that one of the emissions reduction strategies be for school bus fleets in the area. School buses were chosen because of their important impact on ambient air quality in general and on student health in particular. There were about 473,000 school buses in 2004-05 school year nationwide which traveled for a total mileage about 4 billion miles in that period. Orange County Public School owns about 1400 school buses which traveled about 17 million miles in 2005-06 school year, serving 71000 students. The use of diesel fuels Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD, diesel fuel containing 15 ppm sulfur) and Biodiesel (B20, a mixture of 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel) were chosen as the first proposed action to be studied. This report reviews the effects of ULSD, B20 and Conventional Diesel (CD, diesel fuel containing 350 ppm sulfur) on school bus fleet emissions and it does comparison analysis among the fuels in order to show advantages and disadvantages of each fuel. The CD and ULSD emissions were estimated by using MOBILE6.2 model, and effects of B20 on emissions were derived from previous studies. It was found that using B20 or ULSD can reduce the emissions significantly for most of major pollutants but in the case of NOx, the change percentage is not certain yet and more investigation is required.

Publication Date

1-1-2007

Publication Title

100th Annual Conference and Exhibition of the Air and Waste Management Association 2007, ACE 2007

Volume

2

Number of Pages

1227-1236

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

Socpus ID

44649178665 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/44649178665

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