Study of exhaust emissions from different fuels based vehicles in Lahore City of Pakistan

Abstract

Lahore is a mega city of Pakistan located in South Asia having more than 1.5 million populations. Motor vehicles are the major sources of pollution in this city. This study is focused on the measurement of air pollution levels due to congested traffic in Lahore city. The average results of two-wheeler and four-wheeler vehicles using petrol as fuel showed that the level of CO2 was in the range of 2.20-8.80 %, NO2 from 0.00-83.33 ppm, SO2 99.67-799.33 ppm and hydrocarbons in the range of 77.33-550 ppm. Vehicles using compressed natural gas as fuel showed CO2 was in the range 1.44-9.80 %, NO2, 10.22-25.37 ppm, SO2 zero emissions and hydrocarbons 4.36-13.66 ppm. Vehicle exhaust emission data showed that Lahore city is exposed to high concentration of CO2, NOx and SOx. The overall results of study showed that compressed natural gas is more environment friendly fuel as compared to petrol. However, pollution level can considerably improve by introduction of large-scale compressed natural gas vehicles in Lahore city.