(Press-News.org) An engine design appearing under the hoods of many new cars and light trucks today is close to meeting the latest pollution standards that will require vehicles to emit fewer harmful particles over their lifetimes, scientists are reporting. The new study on emissions from gasoline direct injection (GDI) technology appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Matti Maricq and colleagues explain that to meet new regulations, vehicle manufacturers need to make cars both more fuel-efficient and less polluting, which can be a difficult engineering challenge. In 2012, California approved standards to reduce emissions from passenger cars to 3 milligrams, or a millionth of an ounce, per mile over the 2017-2021 automobile model years. Particulate matter in emissions is associated with health problems, such as asthma and other lung conditions. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed the same target and expects it to remain consistent for 150,000 miles of a vehicle's lifetime. In the meantime, car manufacturers have been putting more cars with GDI technology, which boosts fuel efficiency by injecting gasoline straight into a vehicle's combustion chamber, on the market. But no one had looked at the emissions picture over the lifetime of these fuel-efficient vehicles to see if GDI cars can also meet the new particulate matter standards.
They tested the particle emissions from two GDI vehicles. They found in these examples that the emissions hovered near or below the limit set by the new California and EPA standards over a lifetime of 150,000 miles.
###
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 163,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
Follow us: Twitter Facebook END
Engine technology on the road to meeting emissions standards
2013-10-16
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Maximizing broccoli's cancer-fighting potential
2013-10-16
Spraying a plant hormone on broccoli — already one of the planet's most nutritious foods — boosts its cancer-fighting potential, and researchers say they have new insights on how that works. They published their findings, which could help scientists build an even better, more healthful broccoli, in ACS' Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry.
John Juvik and colleagues explain that diet is one of the most important factors influencing a person's chances of developing cancer. One of the most helpful food families includes cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, kale ...
University of Toronto research warns against Wi-Fi in cars
2013-10-16
TORONTO, ON – Plans to provide high-speed Internet access in vehicles, announced last month by Canadian telecommunications company Rogers Communications and American provider Sprint Corporation, could do with some sobering second-thought, says a researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto.
"Because of the potential for driver distraction, safety should be of great concern," said Professor Ian Spence, author of a new study on the impact of auditory distractions on visual attention. "Many people assume that talking to a voice-operated device ...
Recession's after-effects could lead to cheating and workplace theft suggests new study
2013-10-16
Toronto – We like to think we'd stick to our ethical principles no matter what. But when people feel financially deprived -- as many did from losses suffered thanks to the last market and banking meltdown -- they are more likely to relax their moral standards and transgress to improve their financial situation. They are also more likely to judge other deprived moral offenders who do the same more leniently, says a new paper to be published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
"We found that most respondents did not think financial deprivation would ...
Predicting health risks of everyday chemicals
2013-10-16
Concern over the safety of everyday household products, such as baby bottles and soaps, has spurred a wide-ranging research effort into predicting the health risks of tens of thousands of chemicals. That's the topic of the cover story in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.
Britt E. Erickson, C&EN senior editor, points out that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged with overseeing the safety of chemicals in consumer products. It's a monumental task — an estimated 80,000 chemicals are on the market ...
Patients with poor nutrition before bladder cancer operation have higher risk of complications
2013-10-16
Patients with bladder cancer are two times more likely to have complications after a radical cystectomy procedure if they have a biomarker for poor nutritional status before the operation, according to study findings presented last week at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. Surgeons from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center identified a potentially modifiable risk factor for such postsurgical problems: a low preoperative level of albumin, a marker of the protein level ...
Birds on repeat: Do playbacks hurt fowl?
2013-10-16
PRINCETON, NJ—In the forests of Ecuador, plain-tailed wrens nest in bamboo thickets, singing complex and continuous melodies. Residing nearby are rufous antpittas, small, secretive birds that hop like thrushes and whistle in mossy forests. Together, their songs fill parts of the South American Andes.
Birdwatchers often seek out rare and beautiful birds like the wren and antpitta using "playbacks" – or recordings of bird songs – to draw such them out from their hideaways. But does such babbling-on-repeat harm the birds?
Using the emphatic sounds of both bird species, ...
Mayo Clinic psychiatrist: Taking guns away from mentally ill won't eliminate mass shootings
2013-10-16
ROCHESTER, Minn. — A string of public mass shootings during the past decade-plus have rocked America leaving policymakers and mental health experts alike fishing for solutions to prevent these heinous crimes. A Mayo Clinic physician, however, argues that at least one proposal won't stop the public massacres: restricting gun access to the mentally ill. J. Michael Bostwick, M.D., a Mayo Clinic psychiatrist and author of the editorial published online in Mayo Clinic Proceedings today, argues several points including that mass shootings are carefully planned — often spanning ...
Carbon cycle models underestimate indirect role of animals
2013-10-16
Animal populations can have a far more significant impact on carbon storage and exchange in regional ecosystems than is typically recognized by global carbon models, according to a new paper authored by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES).
In fact, in some regions the magnitude of carbon uptake or release due to the effects of specific animal species or groups of animals — such as the pine beetles devouring forests in western North America — can rival the impact of fossil fuel emissions for the same region, according to the paper ...
Geoscience Workforce Currents #79
2013-10-16
Alexandria, VA –The majority of bachelor's and doctoral graduates did not participate in an internship experience during their postsecondary career, whereas the majority of master's graduates did have at least one internship experience. Most of those bachelor's, master's and doctoral students that held an internship considered their internship experiences to be "very important". Of these master's candidates, 48% were employed within the geosciences at a company they had previously interned at the time.
###
For the complete Geoscience Currents #79 please go to: http://bit.ly/17JXlLe. ...
Wari, predecessors of the Inca, used restraint to reshape human landscape
2013-10-16
The Wari, a complex civilization that preceded the Inca empire in pre-Columbia America, didn't rule solely by pillage, plunder and iron-fisted bureaucracy, a Dartmouth study finds. Instead, they started out by creating loosely administered colonies to expand trade, provide land for settlers and tap natural resources across much of the central Andes.
The results, which appear in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, shed new light on how early states evolved into empires in the region that became the Inca imperial heartland. A PDF of the study is available on request.
The ...