Investigation of tailpipe and evaporative emissions from China IV and Tier 2 passenger vehicles with different gasolines

•Tailpipe and evaporative emissions of vehicles with different fuels were tested.•Compared with gasoline, E10 and M15 aggravated the evaporative emissions.•Evaporative emissions were higher than tailpipe HC emissions for China IV vehicles.•E10 and M15 reduced CO, PN compared with gasoline, while increased NOx seriously.•Evaporative emissions of China IV vehicle were much higher than that of Tier 2.

The limited understanding of vehicular emissions in China, especially evaporative emissions, is one obstacle to establishing tighter standards. To evaluate tailpipe and evaporative emissions, two typical China IV vehicles and one Tier 2 vehicle with an onboard refuelling vapour recovery (ORVR) system were selected and tested. One of the China IV vehicles was fuelled with gasoline, E10 and M15, respectively, to investigate the effect of fuel properties on vehicular emissions. For each vehicle, cold-start tailpipe emission tests were conducted first, followed by an evaporation test. Based on the emission factors and real-world vehicle activity data, the annual tailpipe and evaporative hydrocarbon (HC) emissions of each vehicle were calculated and compared. The results show that E10 and M15 significantly reduced the tailpipe CO and particle number (PN) emissions but seriously aggravated the NOx emissions, especially for M15. The hot soak losses (HSLs) and diurnal breathing losses (DBLs) were slightly impacted by the fuel properties. The annual evaporative emissions with E10 and M15 were higher than that with gasoline. The ORVR system effectively controlled the evaporative emissions, especially for DBLs. Evaporative emissions from the China IV vehicles were 1.1-1.4 times the tailpipe HC emissions. Additionally, the evaporative emission factors of the China IV vehicles were almost 50% lower than the standard (2.0 g/test), whereas their annual evaporative emissions were almost 1.8-2.8 times higher than those from the Tier 2 vehicle. Therefore, controlling evaporative emissions currently remains a great need in China, and the ORVR might be a recommended evaporative control technology.