The contribution of brake emissions to the total vehicle emissions

Abstract

Over the last decades, the automotive industry has made huge efforts to lower vehicle emissions which have especially contributed to improve emission level in inner city areas. In Europe, limitations for particle emissions from diesel engines have dropped by 97% during the last two decades. In addition, friction materials have undergone many changes and functional components with an associated health hazard potential have been substituted step by step. Currently, the substitution of copper and its compounds have caused huge amounts of development work and resources in the friction industry dedicated to solve this challenge. However, with regards to a continuously further concentration of traffic in urban city areas, further measures and restrictions are to be expected. And although the exhaust emission values from vehicles is at an extremely low level, fine particle measurement devices in the inner cities still show there is room for improvement.