Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, elemental and organic carbon emissions from tire-wear Original Research Article

Tire-wear is an important source of PAHs, elemental carbon (EC) and organic carbon (OC). The emissions of these pollutants have been studied in an experimental set-up, simulating a realistic road–tire interaction (summer tire–concrete road). The large particle non-exhaust emissions (LPNE; diameter greater than 10 μm) have been evaluated over 14,500 km run of the tire. An increasing linear trend with cumulative km run was observed for emissions of PAHs and carbon. Amongst PAHs in LPNE, pyrene has been observed to be the highest (30 ± 4 mg kg− 1) followed by benzo[ghi]perylene (17 ± 2 mg kg− 1). Different fractions of EC–OC for tire-wear have been analyzed, and unlike exhaust emissions, EC1 was observed to be 99% of EC whereas more than 70% of the OC was the high temperature carbon (OC3 and OC4). The overall emission factors (mass tire− 1 km− 1) for PAHs, EC and OC from tire-wear are 378 ng tire− 1 km− 1, 1.46 mg tire− 1 km− 1 and 2.37 mg tire− 1 km− 1 for small cars.