10th International Aerosol Conference
September 2 - September 7, 2018
America's Center Convention Complex
St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Abstract View


Development of Size-resolved Black Carbon Particle Number Emission Inventory for Global Civil Aviation

XIAOLE ZHANG, Xi Chen, Jing Wang, ETH Zuerich

     Abstract Number: 213
     Working Group: Carbonaceous Aerosol

Abstract
The air traffic is growing rapidly. The black carbon (BC) in the aviation exhaust may impact climate, environment and public health. The particle number and size distribution are relevant metrics for toxicological analysis and aerosol-cloud interactions.

In this study, a size-resolved BC particle number emission inventory is developed for the global civil aviation based on the recent measurements. The development follows the European Environment Agency (EEA) air pollutant emission inventory guidebook by utilizing the global scheduled flight dataset in 2005. The BC mass emission indices for nearly 300 types of aircrafts under various flight conditions are also provided by EEA. The mass-number conversion is conducted using fractal aggregate theory and the particle mass parameters obtained from experiments. The geometric mean diameters (GMD) and geometric standard deviations (GSD) of the particles are estimated with a new correlation based on the combustor inlet temperature (T3) and BC mass emission index (EIm) of the aircraft engines. Other flight parameters (e.g. speed, altitude, duration) are defined based on the statistics of thousands of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and Flight Data Recorder (black box) records.

The number of civil aviation emitted BC particles is estimated to be 1.09×1026 per year (with 95% prediction interval of 6.8~15.0×1025 per year) and the mass emission 9.5 Gg per year. The LTO cycles below 3000 ft (taxi, take-off, climb-out, and approach) and CCD (climb, cruise, and descent) above 3000 ft respectively account for 10.2% and 89.8% of the total particle number. The global mean BC GMD is the largest in take-off, then climb out, climb and cruise. The approach, taxi, and descent phases have the lowest GMDs. The global mean GSDs of different phases are all comparable, within a narrow interval between 1.80 and 1.85. The results indicate that the civil aviation has a much higher contribution to the total anthropogenic particle number emission than that to the mass emission.

Significant spatial heterogeneity has been observed. The number and mass emissions in Asian, Europe, America and other markets are related to the air traffic volume but subjected to modulation by the airplane type. The number emission index varies from about 5.5×1014 per kg-fuel in Northern America to 1.2×1015 per kg-fuel in C.W. OF IND. STATES due to the significant spatial variations in GMDs (about 29 nm in Northern America and 38 nm in C.W. OF IND. STATES.), which is mainly caused by the different dominant airplane types.

The developed emission inventory can be used as input data for air quality/climate models. The uncertainties in the inventory need further investigation.