Comprehensive characterization of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emissions from heavy-duty diesel vehicles utilizing GC × GC-ToF-MS

Comprehensive characterization of diesel vehicle emitted polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emissions is yet to achieve due to the limitation of analytical methods. Therefore, we herein developed a two-dimensional gas chromatography time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC-ToF-MS) method and quantified the total PAHs from diesel vehicles based on their characteristic fragments and mass spectral patterns. Overall, the emission factors (EFs) of total PAHs (gas + particle) are observed to range from 4.1 ± 2.5 mg km−1 to 51.4 ± 22.2 mg km−1 under cold-start and hot-start conditions for one China IV and two China VI heavy-duty diesel vehicles (HDDVs), of which the un-speciated PAHs account for more than 97%. Gaseous PAHs (g-PAHs) are dominated by three-ring PAHs, whereas particulate PAHs (p-PAHs) are dominated by two-ring PAHs. The total PAHs partition significantly into the gas phase for whole fleets and cycles, except that five-ring PAHs partition almost completely into the particle phase. The aftertreatment technologies (e.g., diesel particulate filter, DPF) significantly reduce the total PAH emissions by 49.8 ± 33.2%. The minimum toxic equivalency factors (TEFs) are deployed to estimate the toxicity of the total PAHs. Much higher toxicity is obtained than those in previous studies, indicating that the PAH toxicity of diesel vehicle emissions might be largely underestimated.