Legal Regulations of Restrictions of Air Pollution Made by Mobile Positive Pressure Fans—The Case Study for Europe: A Review

Abstract

This paper presents a review of mobile positive pressure ventilation fans for use in rescue operations available on the European market in correlation with the approval regulations of the drive units. The authors determined the approval limits for harmful compound emissions by their power units, as applicable within the European Union. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the emissions of harmful compounds from the exhausts of rescue fan power units. It was demonstrated that electric fans are not in direct competition with internal combustion fans because they are provided in different power ranges, and 74% of the electric fan market falls between 1.1 kW and 2.2 kW, whereas fans powered by combustion engines are offered in a much higher power range from 0.7 kW to 92 kW, and the most popular power range offered by manufacturers is from 3.4 kW to 6.3 kW (57% of the market). On the basis of the limits derived from approval tests it can be demonstrated that 90% of engines on the European market which are used in fans (spark ignition (SI) engine up to 19 kW) are allowed carbon monoxide (CO) emissions of 610 g/kWh and hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions (HC + NOx) of 8 g/kWh.

Problems of operation of positive pressure ventilators on the basis of surveys of Polish officers of the State Fire Service

“…In the small-engine non-road designs used to drive rescue ventilators, the exhaust systems (which also dampen noise) through the compact design are quite small 65,66 . One way to reduce the negative impacts (noise 67 , emissions of harmful exhaust gases 35,68,69 , high temperatures 65,66 ) of internal combustion engines is to replace them with electric motors 70,71 . However, within the group of emergency ventilator drive units, as demonstrated by Warguła and Kaczmarzyk in 2022 36 on the Polish market the most popular are combustion powered ventilators with a power output ranging from 3.4 kW to 6.3 kW (approximately 50% of the market).…”

“…Unfortunately, not all devices are subject to the admittance process. In case of positive pressure ventilators, no research methods have been implemented to comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness of these devices [34][35][36] . Ventilators are characterized by a wide spectrum of operation.…”

Problems of operation of positive pressure ventilators on the basis of surveys of Polish officers of the State Fire Service

“…One way to reduce the negative impacts (noise 71 , emissions of harmful exhaust gases 35 , 72 , 73 , high temperatures 69 , 70 ) of internal combustion engines is to replace them with electric motors 74 , 75 . However, within the group of emergency ventilator drive units, as demonstrated by Warguła and Kaczmarzyk 36 on the Polish market the most popular are combustion powered ventilators with a power output ranging from 3.4 to 6.3 kW (approximately 50% of the market). On the other hand, electric ventilators are commonly offered in the smaller power range from 1.1 to 2.2 kW (74% of the electric ventilator market in Poland) 36 .…”

“…However, within the group of emergency ventilator drive units, as demonstrated by Warguła and Kaczmarzyk 36 on the Polish market the most popular are combustion powered ventilators with a power output ranging from 3.4 to 6.3 kW (approximately 50% of the market). On the other hand, electric ventilators are commonly offered in the smaller power range from 1.1 to 2.2 kW (74% of the electric ventilator market in Poland) 36 . Hence, for the time being, replacing internal combustion drives with electric drives, especially of greater power, seems difficult to implement in practice.…”

“…Unfortunately, not all devices are subject to the admittance process. In case of positive pressure ventilators, no research methods have been implemented to comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness of these devices 34 – 36 . Ventilators are characterized by a wide spectrum of operation.…”