Quantitative detection, sources exploration and reduction of in-cabin benzene series hazards of electric buses through climate chamber experiments.

In this study, a large-scale in-cabin benzene series hazard detection is firstly performed on 20 electric buses by a full-scale climate chamber. The sources of BTEX are analyzed deeply by parts detection, and a series of effective measures are performed to reduce BTEX. Firstly, the in-cabin BTEX pollution with considerations of a series of parameters, such as interior configuration, environment temperature, vehicle age, and ventilation mode, is analyzed. The result shows that: 1) The VOCs concentrations decrease with vehicle age, higher configuration level and better ventilation system (particularly, fresh wind mode reduce VOCs fastly), while increases with environment temperature; 2) BTEX in bus cabins occupy approximatively 70.1% of TVOC, thus the BTEX overproof is the main culprit which causes VOCs to exceed standard. Then, measurements on components/materials VOCs releases were performed in a small climate chamber to discriminate key species and their sources. Xylene released from glues materials is found as a key species that causes BTEX/VOC to exceed limitation. Lastly, some measures, such as optimizations of materials selection and manufacturing crafts, are adopted to improve in-cabin pollution, and positive effects are obtained. For example, ethylbenzene and xylene released from HL 125 (a polyurethane adhesive) decrease by 2456% and 1930% respectively after improvement. And in-cabin xylene and TVOC decrease by 2274% and 222%, respectively, and all of them are lower than limitation value.