Hello,
What would be the most pragmatic approach here? An ideal outcome would be to be able to determine how much a contributing factor either a) exhaust emissions b) wood smoke from heating houses are contributing to a particular air sample. Live sampling via device would be nice, sampling and sending off for 3rd party analysis would also work.
In the event the 3rd party sample analysis is the most practical, any recommendations of places to get this done in Europe would be appreciated.
I do research with non-exhaust emissions from cars with a focus on PM from tyre and brake wear. I met scientists who spent a PhD thesis trying to understand the ratio between exhaust and non-exhaust emissions. Till today, there is ambiguity around this question despite decades of research. This is somehow surprising, as PM from tyres/brakes is chemically quite different to exhaust PM.
In your case, you are asking for the ratio between exhaust emissions and wood fire smoke. I assume you refer to airborne particulate matter in both cases. I am not familar with these emission types, but I suspect we talk about soot in both cases. Soot is rich in carbon nanoparticles, which form as gaseous carbon-based molecules condense. The nanoparticles then collide with each other to form bigger clusters, but they are still very small compared to other PM. Unfortunately, I believe the soot from exhaust emissions is very similar to soot from wood fire smoke, which makes differentiation difficult or maybe even unfeasible? I could be wrong here.
May I ask for the motivation behind your question? In my experience, exhaust PM is very low… usually much lower than 1.9 mg per driven kilometer. Most cars (also diesel cars) have such advanced PM purification systems, that they may even act as an air purifier: the air at the engine inlet has often more PM than the exhaust. This obviously also depends on how clean the ambient air is in the first place. I am unsure how significant exhaust PM is these days, unless we talk about older cars. That’s why people like me investigate non-exhaust PM. Note that NOx is a completely different story here.