Automotive sulfate emission data.

This paper discusses automotive sulfate emission results obtained by the Office of Mobile Source Air Pollution Control of EPA, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, and Esso. This work has been directed towards obtaining sulfate emission factors for cars with and without catalyst. While the EPA and Chrysler investigations have found significant sulfate formation in noncatalyst cars, GM, Ford, and Esso have found only trace levels from noncatalyst cars. All of these investigators agree that much higher quantities of sulfate are emitted from catalyst cars. The work done to date shows pelleted catalysts to have much lower sulfate emissions over the low speed-EPA Federal Test Procedures than monolith catalysts. This is probably due to temporary storage of sulfates on the catalyst due to chemical interaction with the alumina pellets. The sulfate compounds are, to a large degree, emitted later under higher speed conditions which result in higher catalyst temperatures which decompose the alumina salt. Future work will be directed towards further elucidation of this storage mechanism as well as determining in detail how factors such as air injection rate and catalyst location affect sulfate emissions.