Health effect of emission from electric and biodiesel vehicles – A review

Abstract

The transport vehicles have been using the internal combustion engine for many decades. The internal combustion engine is used because of its high reliability. The transport sector plays a vital role in the country’s economy. It is estimated that about 90% of the transportation sector uses fossil fuels. With the increasing industrialization, there will be a shortage of fossil fuels. Every year, there is an increase in the energy demand by 2%, stated by International Energy Agency Report. There would be 39% increase in the greenhouse gas emission by the year 2030 from fossil fuels. With the rising concern about climate change and the increasing amount of toxic emissions, manufacturers of the car are getting aware and are shifting towards less polluting vehicles or green vehicles. Biodiesel is also gaining interest and is being preferred because of its continued availability, emission characteristics showed that biodiesel has low CO emission. With addition of ethanol, the emission of CO further decreases, but NOx emission increases. NOx decreased with jatropha methyl ester and 50% turpentine oil. On the other hand, the use of electric vehicle or hybrid electric vehicle would also decrease the emission by 51% but would increase the load on power grid by 3% for every 30% penetration, which would increase the emission/air pollution from the thermal power plant. Emission in the human body can cause illness, increase the death, and be hazardous to the health of humans. This paper gives a review of the emissions from biodiesel and electric vehicles and the health effects.