Article pubs.acs.org/est
Assessing the Climate Trade-Offs of Gasoline Direct Injection Engines Naomi Zimmerman,*,†,§ Jonathan M. Wang,† Cheol-Heon Jeong,† James S. Wallace,‡ and Greg J. Evans† †
Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S3E5 Canada Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S3G8 Canada
‡
S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: Compared to port fuel injection (PFI) engine exhaust, gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine exhaust has higher emissions of black carbon (BC), a climate-warming pollutant. However, the relative increase in BC emissions and climate trade-offs of replacing PFI vehicles with more fuel efficient GDI vehicles remain uncertain. In this study, BC emissions from GDI and PFI vehicles were compiled and BC emissions scenarios were developed to evaluate the climate impact of GDI vehicles using global warming potential (GWP) and global temperature potential (GTP) metrics. From a 20 year time horizon GWP analysis, average fuel economy improvements ranging from 0.14 to 14% with GDI vehicles are required to offset BC-induced warming. For all but the lowest BC scenario, installing a gasoline particulate filter with an 80% BC removal efficiency and
