News & Events

 

VERT FORUM 2024

- March 22nd at EMPA, Dübendorf, Switzerland - Save the date!

 

VERT is very pleased to welcome Mann + Hummel as a New VERT Member!

 

Environment Committee rejects improved pollutant emission standards

Brussels, 12 October

In a parallel move to the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament’s Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) has voted today, weakening the European Commission’s proposal to enhance air quality across Europe. The committee adopted a set of compromise amendments, which entail a longer implementation timeline for heavy-duty vehicles, marginally stricter limit values, and weakened testing conditions. Proposals for slightly more ambitious rules were dismissed in the vote by the committee.

 

- OPEN LETTER -

 

Regulating pollutants from tyre emissions

To whom it may concern:

An important and groundbreaking part of the proposed Euro 7 regulation involves setting a limit value for tyre wear emissions. This is particularly important as vehicles continue to become heavier, not least with the growing sales of battery electric vehicles. However, the current proposal covers only the total mass of emissions and, therefore, ignores both ultrafine nanoparticles and chemicals released from the tyres. Without changes, it is likely that tyres will be re-engineered to deliver lower emissions of larger particles but potentially at the cost of the release of more invisible nanoparticles and potentially toxic chemicals. Therefore, we would call on the European regulators to initiate work as soon as possible on a second phase to Euro 7 tyre emissions that would expand the coverage to both nanoparticles and chemical release in real-world conditions.

Regulating mass, and thereby larger particles, is important particularly for marine pollution, as the over 50% reduction in the population of coho salmon on the west coast of North America shows. This die-off has been conclusively linked by academics to a preservative compound found primarily in tyres. By this very fact, it can be seen that it is not only the particles themselves that is causing the issue, but the chemicals leaching out as those particles settle in the environment. Furthermore, these same tyre chemicals are being seen on a widespread basis in human foodstuffs and excreta.

These chemicals are typically volatile organic compounds. Within this broad collection there is group of aromatic compounds, many of which are carcinogenic, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). To some extent these are regulated at the tailpipe currently through the total hydrocarbons limit value, although this could also be made more stringent and targeted to the most potentially toxic individual compounds. Eight compounds are also restricted under the REACH chemical regulation, but the coverage is too narrow and the limits too accommodating. Emissions Analytics presented on this topic at the fifth session of the UNECE Task Force on Tyre Abrasion on 30 September 2022. There is regulatory precedent from Switzerland, where the 2014 particle number standard (SN 277206:2014) included a secondary emissions test for certain target chemicals—including PAHs and nitro-aromatics—based on the US Clean Air Act section 202.

Nanoparticles are already regulated at the tailpipe since Euro 5. This intervention has been highly successful in reducing in-use emissions by particle filters in most vehicles, and measurement of these ultrafine particles is being expanded into the periodic technical inspection regimes in a number of European countries, which in all likely will deliver further significant reductions in real-world particle emissions. As the evidence for the negative health outcomes from chronic and acute exposure to nanoparticles becomes ever clearer, the value of this regulation grows. Yet, there are no current plans to regulate the same particles from tyres, despite tyres being made of the same underlying fossil materials as liquid fuels. Multiple academic studies have shown that tyres release large numbers of these particles in real-world use. Particle number measurement from tyres has been included for many years in the investigations of the Joint Research Centre of the European Community and the Particle Measurement Programme, and such efforts should be accelerated to address this growing environmental issue.

In summary, we call on European regulators to apply the same approach they have applied to the tailpipe to the growing issue of tyre emissions. Particle mass, particle number and volatile organic compounds released from tyres must all come within a successful Euro 7 regulation at the earliest opportunity.

Signatories:

Nick Molden, Chief Executive Officer, Emissions Analytics
Dr Andreas Mayer, Chairman of the Scientific Committee, VERT Association

NPTI

The recommendation of the European Commission for a new Pn-test for checking DPF’s has been published:

 

See https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/NL/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32023H0688

COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION (EU) 2023/688 of 20 March 2023 on particle number measurement for the periodic technical inspection of vehicles equipped with compression ignition engines

 

FILTECH 2023 - The Filtration Event

February 14-16 Cologne Germany -

VERT and MANN+HUMMEL to present 2 papers on the HORIZON AeroSolfd Project

for more information visit

 https://filtech.de/

November 14, 2022 - U.S. EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality 

On November 14th, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the particulate matter (PM) emission standards and test procedures for civil aircraft engines. The standards apply to new type design and in-production civil aircraft engines with rated output of greater than 26.7 kilonewtons. These engines are typically used in commercial passenger and freight aircraft and in larger business jets. The final standards align with the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) PM standards and will take effect on January 1, 2023

For more information on the final action, visit 

https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/final-rule-control-air-pollution-aircraft-engines

EURO 7 PROPOSAL

Brussels, 10 November - The European Commission published today its proposal  for new vehicle pollutant emission standards. The Euro 7 proposal, which covers light- and heavy-duty vehicles, aims to improve EU air quality and public health by continuing to lower pollutant emissions coming from road transport.

Full article Link below. 

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/_2022_11_09_EURO7

The Euro 7 proposal introduces more stringent limits, covering also new pollutants, as well as extended testing conditions.

  • Regulate emissions from brakes and tyres: the Euro 7 standards rules will be the first worldwide emission standards to move beyond regulating exhaust pipe emissions and set additional limits for particulate emissions from brakes and rules on microplastic emissions from tyres. These rules will apply to all vehicles, including electric ones.

The proposal, is ambitious but timing and technical feasibility need to be still  properly addressed in order to be realistic and applicable.

19th FAD conference, November 3-4, 2022 Dresden

The 19th FAD conference with its exhibition was attended by over 120 attendees from OEMs, fuel and additives companies, universities and research organizations. The focus of the conference was on de-carbonization, and the challenge of emissions control technologies for both diesel and gasoline combustion engines in view of the upcoming EURO VII limits and the stringent regulation on CO2 emissions.
E-fuels, H2-combustion for both LDV and HDV and the latest strategies to reduce NOx and PN emissions from combustion engines were presented. There is no possibility to achieve zero-emissions or CO2 neutral-mobility without taking care of the overall CO2-cycle.

The synergies of all means such as H2 combustion, e-Fuels, alternative fuels and latest aftertreatment strategies for diesel and gasoline combustion engines are the proper solution for CO2 emissions reduction. The challenge of reaching at least 55% CO2 reduction by 2030 is still high and solutions are needed asap. Increasingly stringent  emission requirements, such as the Euro VII standard, require modern control systems for measuring and monitoring emission values.  Below the link to the full Conference Program and Exhibition. Presentations will be reported as soon as available. 

https://fad-diesel.de/download/program-19th-fad-conference-2022/?wpdmdl=52056

https://fad-diesel.de/download/exhibition-brochure-2022/?wpdmdl=52030

PN-PTI to start in China

We are pleased to inform that PN-PTI will start in China in 2023 (Beijing). This is the result of a long and ongoing consultation between VERT and the Chinese Authorities.

SAE Powertrain Fuels and Lubricants Conference Sept 6-8 Krakow- Highlight

Three full days of very interesting presentations and discussions at the SAE Powertrain Fuels and Lubricants Conference held on September 6-8, in the beautiful city of Krakow, Poland.

Fuels and lubricants manufactures, engine manufactures, universities, EU Commission JRC, experts from all over the world were present from Japan to India, USA, Saudi Arabia and Europe. Powertrain systems, aftertreatment solutions to conventional combustion engines for Euro 7 (LDV & HDV) as well as new hybridization, lower carbon fuels including hydrogen, and fuel cell formulations were presented.

Lots of very interesting presentations in 5 parallel sessions and precisely 31 technical sessions, with 121 published papers and 121 presentations. Panel discussions, key note speeches, poster exhibitions and sponsors exhibitions (AVL, BOSMAL, Cambustion, Toyota, Solaris, NGV etc.) all contributed to the success of the conference.

Not all presentations and conference material are available yet and many of the interesting discussions and presentations were "oral only". The Conference material will be stored and distributed to interested parties.

The full conference program can be found at the link below:

2022 SAE PFL Conference Program

Main Take aways:

The stringent targets towards decarbonation can only be achieved with a "holistic approach`.  There is "no Silver Bullet". All means are needed, from emissions reductions from combustion engines to BEV, PHEV, FCEV (Batteries, Hybrids, Fuel cell) and HEV, H2 electric vehicles.  All means are needed to achieve the decarbonization goal and CO2 targets by 2050. 

The message towards CO2 emission reduction was very clear: "We cannot talk anymore about CO2 tailpipe emissions but we need to look at the all Life-cycle analysis" and make this clear to policymakers.

Toyota Motor Corporation had a great stand showing BEV/PHEV/FCEV technologies all in the market today with special focus on the new Fuel cell vehicle Mirai. Interesting presentations on emissions control from HDV with DPF / SCR and LVD with GPF. Dr. Valverde from JRC presented an interesting work on LDV vehicles at low mileage equipped with GPF and DPF over WLTC & RDE cycles and Dr. Imad Kalek from SWRI had also an interesting talk on the influence of ash in the lube oil for particle emissions that can be also critical even for H2 engines equipped vehicles. The full presentations are available for distribution on request.