AeroSolfd: Fast Track to Cleaner Urban Air

Context

After lowering carbon emissions from vehicles, the next big challenge is to reduce NOx and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) emissions, residue of toxic particles coming from brake and tire wear and/or engines. Especially in semi-closed environments PM builds up to unhealthy levels. Despite the increasing share of electric vehicles on the road, a large part of the vehicles globally will still be running on petrol and gas in the coming decades. On top of that, all vehicles, including electric and hydrogen ones will continue to emit non-exhaust PM.

A true zero emission road transport requires the adoption of retrofit solutions to capture emissions from existing fleets. And to prepare for a circular future Cenex NL delivers Life Cycle Analyses for the retrofit solutions.

Considerations:

  • The Euro 7 standards proposed by the EU Commission in 2022 are the first worldwide emission standards to move beyond regulating exhaust pipe emissions and set additional limits for particulate emissions from brakes and rules on microplastic emissions from tyres. These rules will apply to all vehicles, including electric ones.
  • Particulate matter emissions contributes to air, soil and water pollution and has serious health consequences particularly in semi-enclosed spaces such as bus stops, tunnels and train and metro stations.

Project brief

AeroSolfd is a Horizon Europe project focused on developing effective retrofit filter systems to have a positive impact on health and the environment. The project will produce affordable, adaptive and environmentally friendly products that will reduce the harmful emissions of particulate matter at the exhaust, through brake discs and pollution in (semi-) enclosed spaces. A consortium of partners from eight European countries, led by MANN+HUMMEL, has joined forces to make a quick deployment of these filters possible. This way, people in Europe and beyond can already benefit from even more environmentally friendly mobility by 2025.

During the three-year project period (2022-2025), the effectiveness of the AeroSolfd solutions will be demonstrated in practical situations in eight different European example cities: Valladolid (Spain), Sofia (Bulgaria), Ancona and Fermo (Italy), Lisbon (Portugal), Rovaniemi (Finland), Haifa (Israel), and Biel (Switzerland).

Objectives

The goal of AeroSolfd is to develop three types of affordable retrofit filters in an accelerated trajectory:

  1. Filter against the emission of NOx and toxic particulate matter at the exhaust;
  2. Filter to capture particulate matter as a result of wear of brakes;
  3. Filter to capture particulate matter in semi-enclosed spaces;

AeroSolfd has a special focus on creating public and political awareness about the harmful environmental and health effects of exhaust and brake emissions. The project also provides recommendations for policy makers on developing incentives that contribute to the accelerated deployment of these retrofit technologies.

Cenex NL key contributions

Cenex NL is involved in both product design and evaluation phases. Our team contributes to defining a framework to later assess the sustainability of these retrofit  technologies. We will also perform Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for each product line to understand their  the ecological footprint of these new products is and to make recommendations for further improvements.

This project has received funding from the Horizon Europe research and innovation program of the European Union under grant agreement No. 101056661.

Go to project website