Real-world emission experiments and comprehensive assessment of low-carbon fuels: towards clean hard-to-electrify transport modes

General Information

The REALCHEM project aims to promote a clean and climate-friendly transport system by studying emissions from low carbon fuels in hard-to-electrify (HtE) transport sectors, including aviation, shipping, and heavy-duty on-road and non-road mobile machinery. The project will observe emissions from various fuels and engines under real-life conditions, model their effects on air quality and human health, and focus on the most important new technologies. REALCHEM will use a large amount of pre-existing data on both low-carbon and fossil fuels, and conduct novel experimental work in all three HtE transport modes. The aim is to produce guidance and technology packages for cleaner transport in terms of health effects and climate impacts. The data will be organized into a low-carbon fuel emission database, which will help REALCHEM generate new knowledge and identify the most efficient new fuels and technologies.
The project has three main objectives: 1) Produce robust, comprehensive, and actionable scientific data on the characteristics of emissions from low-carbon fuels in the Hard-to-Electrify transport modes. 2) Understand the effect of introducing low-carbon fuels to the developing technology matrix on human health, climate, and the environment. 3) Help technology developers and users to understand the emission formation and reduce the harmful pollution from engines using low-carbon fuels. These efforts are in line with Europe's ambitious climate targets, the Green Deal, and the vision of zero pollution by 2050. The need for combustion-based technologies in heavy-duty transport, non-road machinery, shipping, and aviation sectors remains, and the decarbonisation of these sectors is expected to be driven by a shift from fossil fuels to low-carbon alternatives. This will lead to changes in combustion technologies and air pollutant emissions. REALCHEM will provide scientific evidence and recommendations to navigate this changing future.
Hereon leads the work package entitled “Air pollution and exposure projections” with the following two objectives: (i) Provide consistent emission data from heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs), non-road mobility machinery (NRMM), shipping, aviation, and other relevant emission sectors for 2019 and 2050; and (ii) Produce air pollution exposure projections that include emerging pollutants stemming from low-carbon fuel use in different transport sectors.

EU-Programme Acronym and Subprogramme Area	HORIZON-CL5-2024-D5-01-18
Project Type	Research and Innovation Action (RIA)
Contract Number	Grant Agreement 101192395
Co-ordinator	University of Tampere (FI)

Funding for the Project (€)	Funding for Hereon (€)
3,498,191	349,850

Contact Person at Hereon

Dr. Volker Matthias, Institute of Coastal Environmental Chemistry, Chemistry Transport Modeling, KUT, Phone +49 4152 87 2346 E-mail contact

Participants

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR), Danaos Management Consultants (GR), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FI), Ivl Svenska Miljoeinstitutet Ab (SE), Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatials (FR), POLIS (BE), Region Skane (SE), SAFRAN SA (FR), University of Tampere (FI), Ustav Experimentalni Mediciny Akademie Ved Ceske Republiky Verejna Vyzkumna Instituce (CZ), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (FI)

Last Update: 10. February 2025