NanoWear : nanoparticles from wear of tyres and pavements

Abstract

Particles from road and tire wear have in recent years come to the fore as an important and relatively unexplored contribution to air particulate pollution. Mechanically generated wear particles are relatively coarse (>0.5 microns), but in controlled trials in VTI's road simulator it has been found that an ultra-fine fraction (< 100 nm) of particles is formed from tyre and pavement wear. This project was initiated to identify the source of these nanoparticles. The results show that the nanoparticles of the size 30-50 nm occur only from tests with studded tyres. One of the two tested Nordic unstudded winter tyres produced an even finer particle fraction (<10 nm), while the other unstudded winter tyre type did not give rise to nanoparticles. Tests with summer tyres did not result in the formation of nanoparticles. It is clear that the fine particle fraction contains higher relative concentrations of sulphur, which is present at relatively high levels in both bitumen and tyres. It is unclear whether the ultrafine particles formed from studded tyre wear of road pavement in the road simulator also occur in real traffic. If so, this may affect the assessment of health effects from different traffic related particle sources