The effect of federal fuel sulfur regulations on in-use fleets: on-road heavy-duty source apportionment.

From 2002 to 2007 fuel sulfur content in the Minneapolis/St Paul area decreased from about 325 ppm S to <15 ppm S as a result of EPA regulations. We hypothesized that the reduction in fuel sulfur would result in a reduction of fuel specific heavy duty (HD) particle number emissions for the on-road diesel fleet. Fuel specific emissions were estimated by collecting on-road aerosol data, and exploiting the difference in the relative volumes of HD and light duty (LD) traffic on the roadway. Fuel-specific particle number emissions for HD vehicles were measured to be 9.1 +/- 6.6 x 10(15) and 3.2 +/- 2.8 x 10(15) particles/kg of fuel burned, in 2006 and 2007, respectively, a reduction of 65%. In an earlier study in 2002 particle number emissions for the in-use HD fleet were 4.2 +/- 0.6 x 10(15) particles/km compared to the current measurements of 2.8 +/- 2.1 x 10(15) and 9.9 +/- 8.7 x 10(14) particles/km in 2006 and 2007, respectively. The HD particle mass emission standard remained unchanged from 1994 through 2006 and few 2007 HD vehicles were on the road at the time of this study so the decreases in number observed emissions are more likely due to reductions in the sulfur content of the fuel than to changes in engine and aftertreatment design.