Urban Air Pollutant from Motor Vehicle Emissions in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

The increasing amount of motor vehicles that emit pollutants are contributing significantly to urban air pollution, be it in industrial or developing countries. This study investigates the emission of particulate matter (PM10) from exhaust and non-exhaust sources and gaseous pollutants, such as carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) from several different classes of motor vehicles in the tropical city of Kuala Lumpur. Air pollutants from fuel consumption were obtained from emission factors, while non-exhaust particulate matter was estimated the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) Compilation of Air Pollutant Emissions Factors (AP-42). The total PM10 emissions from all classes of motor vehicles estimated from the tail-pipe exhaust was 1,029,883 kg, while non-exhaust sources were 1,573,539 kg. Emissions of PM10 from newly registered private cars was the most dominant at 214,427 kg, followed by emissions from motorcycles at 118,582 kg in 2014.

Analysis of Urban Air Pollution and The Effectiveness of Air Pollution Control Policy in Malaysia: Case Study in Klang Valley, Malaysia

“…Despite the environmental laws enforced in Malaysia, the question remains on the effectiveness of environmental law enforcement as air pollution remains a pertinent issue in Malaysia. Shafie & Mahmud (2020), p. 2,793) reported that motor vehicles and traffic are the dominant causes of urban air pollution in Malaysia. This situation is also supported by Chin et al (2019), p. 15) that reported that while 65 percent of the study sample are aware of health hazards of air pollutants from vehicles, they rejected the idea of using public transportation.…”

Impact of Motor Vehicle Exhaust on the Air Quality of an Urban City

“…According to the total weight of vehicles, Chinese motor vehicles can be divided into four categories: light, medium, heavy and motorcycle. Motor vehicle exhaust contains more than 200 kinds of compounds (Zhu et al, 2008;Mohd Shafie and Mahmud, 2020;González et al, 2020), the main pollutants are CO, HC, NOx and lead compounds, sulfide, smoke, oil mist, etc. Among the pollutants of motor vehicle exhaust, CO makes the largest contribution to motor vehicle exhaust.…”

“…These harmful gases diffuse into the air will cause air pollution and harm the human body. In 2016, on-road vehicles accounted for about 39% and 20% of total NO2 and CO emissions in the European Union (EU), and it is found those passenger vehicles are the major cause of NO2 and CO emissions from road transportation (Mohd Shafie and Mahmud, 2020;Iqbal et al, 2022). It has been reported that for every kilogram of gasoline burned by the automobile engine (Deng, 2006;Zhao et al, 2021), 15 kilograms of fresh air will be consumed, and 150-200 grams of carbon monoxide, 4-8 grams of hydrocarbons, 4-20 grams of nitrogen oxide and other pollutants will be emitted at the same time.…”

Exposure of Malaysian Children to Air Pollutants over the School Day

“…Malaysia, like many upper-middle-income countries, has seen rapid growth in population, urbanisation, and economic output, so the effect of air pollution and climate change on children has been of growing concern [23]. Local air quality is a function of the vehicular traffic [24], industrial activity [25] and haze pollution caused by biomass emissions, and from neighbouring countries [26]. The tropical climate and complex local meteorological conditions also affect the formation of secondary pollutants [27].…”