Background

The toxical effects of exhaust gases as combined aerosols (i.e. all gaseous components together with particle matter and nanoparticles) can be investigated in a global way, by exposing the living cells, or cell cultures to the aerosol, which means a simultaneous superposition of all toxic effects from all active components. On several places researchers showed, that this method offers more objective results of validation of toxicity, than other methods used up to date. It also enables a relatively quick insight in the toxic effects with consideration of all superimposed influences of the aerosol.

The scientific question is to investigate the degree of correlation between the reduction of toxicity as expressed by biological parameters to the toxicity equivalence (TEQ) expressed by the chemical parameters and the reduction of particle number, surface, mass and other physical parameters as evaluated by the aerosol analytics.

Purpose and Objectives

The Task offers information services and knowledge transfer.

Activities

International:

Several toxicologist, biologists and medical doctors are working on the problem of the toxical influences of exhaust emissions from vehicles. The NL-Ministry of Environment (VROM) charged the National Institute of Public Health and Environment (RIVM) to deliver basic propositions for new legal prescriptions. This activity of RIVM, which tries to coordinate the knowledge of toxicologists by organising and evaluating different international meetings, is called SETPOINT.

To obtain a common validated bio-toxicological testing procedure more test activities worldwide are necessary. Several European countries declared the interest to participate on common EU-project of EngToxNet (Engine Toxicity Network) to perform a round robin validation program of toxicological procedures.

Present Task:

• Contacts with different research groups
• Collecting information
• Preparing of annual information report
• Coordination with cooperating agents

Participants

• Austrian Agency for Alternative Propulsion Systems (A3PS) (Austria)
• CanmetENERGY (Canada)
• China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC) (China)
• Technical University of Denmark (DTU) (Denmark)
• The Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) (Finland)
• ADEME (France)
• Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe (FNR) (Germany)
• ENI S.p.A. (Italy)
• Ministry of Energy and Water Resources (Israel)
• National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) (Japan)
• Organisation for the Promotion of Low Emission Vehicles (LEVO) (Japan)
• Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) (Republic of Korea)
• IDAE (Spain)
• Swedish Transport Administration (STA) (Sweden)
• Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) (Switzerland)
• t.b.d. (Thailand)
• United States Department of Energy (DOE) (USA)
• Czech Republic
• Greece
• Norway
• Netherlands

Project Duration	November 2010 – December 2014
Participants
Cost Sharing	Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United States
Total Budget	48,000 € ($62,784 US) (AMF: 30,000 €; Switzerland: 18,000 €)
Task Manager	Prof. Jan Czerwinski University of Applied Sciences Bern (AFHB) Lab. For Exhaust Emissions Control jan.czerwinski@bfh.ch