AeroSolfd: Advancing Air Quality through Retrofitted Gasoline Particulate Filters – Insights from Laboratory and Real-World Evaluations

This article details the experimental and testing activities of the EU project AeroSolfd, with a particular focus on the project's efforts to reduce combustion-based nanoparticle emissions in exhaust gases for the European fleet of vehicles by developing a GPF retrofit solution. The technical activities undertaken the process of developing such a retrofit are examined in this article. The findings illustrate the viability of reducing nanoparticle levels in gasoline-powered vehicles with the utilization of appropriate GPFs. For this purpose, in addition to a fleet, four vehicles were examined in great detail and underwent the process of obtaining component approval for the particulate filter. The vehicles were measured in a preliminary state, then following the installation of the GPF, and subsequently after several months of continuous field operation. A total of four vehicles were selected for evaluation as a representative subgroup of a larger test fleet of vehicles in the project. These four vehicles were subjected to a series of assessments, including measuring the emissions on a chassis roller test bench and in real-drive experiments with portable emission measurement equipment. The gaseous and nanoparticle emissions were examined in each of these two test cases, and the variants with and without a particle filter as well as the variants before and after the endurance run. Preliminary findings indicate that the retrofitting of gasoline vehicles with minimal modifications can yield notable benefits besides the reduction in air pollution, particularly in the form of nanoparticles.