Vehicle specific power approach to estimating on-road NH3 emissions from light-duty vehicles

NH3 emissions from motor vehicles have been the subject of a number of recent studies due to their potential impact on ambient particulate matter (PM). Highly time-resolved NH3 emissions can be measured and correlated with specific driving events utilizing a tunable diode laser (TDL). It is possible to incorporate NH3 emissions with this new information into models that can be used to predict emissions inventories from vehicles. The newer generation of modal models are based on modal events, with the data collected at second-by-second time resolution, unlike the bag-based emission inventory models such as EMFAC and MOBILE. The development of an NH3 modal model is described in this paper. This represents one of the first attempts to incorporate vehicle NH3 emissions into a comprehensive emissions model. This model was used in conjunction with on-road driving profiles to estimate the emissions of SULEV, ULEV, and LEV vehicles to be 9.4 +/- 4.1, 21.8 +/- 5.2, and 34.9 +/- 6.0 mg/mi, respectively. We also implement this new NH3 model to predict and evaluate the NH3 emission inventory in the South Coast air basin (SoCAB).