Preliminary Results from Life Cycle Assessment of a Product-Service System for Tailpipe Particle Measuring

Road vehicle fuel combustion emits large quantities of air pollutants such as respirable suspended particles. They are deemed to have severe impacts on human health. Therefore, concentration measurements to identify vehicles with malfunctioning after-treatment systems are crucial. This study assesses the environmental impacts of the production and use phase of a device detecting and quantifying those particle emissions caused by automobiles, also considering associated services such as regular calibration. The focus is on the comparison of environmental impacts of this product-service system and its possible emission avoidance by ensuring stipulated limits. For this purpose, the environmental performance is assessed by means of an adjusted break-even point method. Our work shows that the identification and replacement of 21 improperly working exhaust filters already offset the environmental burden of one device in at least one impact category.