Blackthorn designs and supplies exhaust components including catalytic converters, diesel particulate filters, exhaust pipes and silencers. Our speciality is the reduction of toxic exhaust emissions in the following sectors:
This website aims to provide an overview of the air quality problems that engines can cause, and explain the choice of solutions currently available.
14 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT
The latest in Dr Gary Fuller's pollution watch series for the Guardian Guardian website.....
04 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT
The April edition of King's monthly newsletter Air Mail is out now with all the latest news and research from the Environmental Research Group. If you would like to sign up to receive it straight to your inbox please email erg-airmail@kcl.ac.ukMore Information.....
The City of London has expanded the information available to the public through the LAQN with the addition of their PM10 particulate monitoring in Beech Street. The monitoring site is at the side of the Beech Street underpass which is regularly used as a walkway by locals and faces the entrance to many residential properties in the Barbican Estate. The City of London have responded to the high level of local interest in this site and made the data from it available in near real time through the many information dissemination platforms used by the LAQN. This information, alongside existing information from the monitoring sites at Sir John Cass School , Upper Thames Street, Senator House and Walbrook Wharf, can be accessed here on the LondonAir main web site(including RSS subscription), through the LondonAir Chrome Extension, on the LondonAir and SussexAir iPhone and Android apps, the twitter @LondonAirNow feed and the embedded maps on the LondonAir Facebook page.London Air Apple - iTunesLondonAir Chrome ExtensionGoogle Playtwitter @LondonAirNowLondonAir Facebook page.....
02 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT
The greatest concentrations of PM10 in London are measured in the vicinities of waste management sites. Monitoring PM10 from waste sites has been included in local air quality management (DEFRA, 2009), and this requires detailed assessment of PM10 from a waste site if there is relevant exposure, a history of nuisance complaints or visible dust around the site. Such concerns were raised with respect to several blocks of flats on Mercury Way, in the London Borough of Lewisham, which are in close proximity to a group of waste businesses. We present a new study that characterizes the influence of the waste treatment industries on the PM10 concentration measured at the London Borough of Lewishams Air Quality Monitoring Site (AQMS) in Mercury Way. During the 19 month study, between 15th February 2010 and 20th September 2011, the local waste management businesses were found to contribute 27% of the mean PM10 daily concentration measured at the AQMS in Lewisham. Although the concentration measured met the EU Limit Values (less than 35 days a year exceeding 50 µg·m-3 as daily mean and the annual mean did not exceed 40 µg·m-3) the industrial sources increased the number of daily exceedances from 5 to 25 days compared to urban background AQMSs. When wind blew from the industrial sources the mean PM10 concentrations was on average 18.4 µg·m-3 above the urban background concentration.More Information.....
25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT
A fire in a metal recycling yard in Scrubs Lane, Willesden, Hammersmith & Fulham started yesterday afternoon and has been attended by 8 fire engines from London Fire Brigade overnight. They advised residents living nearby to keeps doors and windows closed.The smoke from the fire appears to have been detected at several LAQN monitoring sites overnight. Around midnight the plume was detected at the Brent Neasden between 23:30 and 01:00, with an 15 minute maximum of 232ug/m3. Shorter, lower concentration peaks were then detected in other locations as the smoke travelled north west. The plume was detected locally at the Brent - Ikea monitoring site between 00:30 and 01:15 (15min peak 63ug/m3) and then for the same duration half an hour later at Harrow Stanmore ( 15min peak 90ug/m3).Closer to the source Brent - John Keeble Primary School detected the smoke as two distinct peaks between 00:30 to 01:30, the higher of the two being the first at 00:45 (15min peak 95ug/m3).All above mentioned monitoring sites use TEOMs to measure their particulate matter. All measurements listed have been adjusted using the Volatile Correction Model to make them EU reference equivalent. It is possible that elevated readings seen at Enfield Bowes Primary School, beside the north circular, 3 hours earlier may have been from this fire but wind direction information currently available is inconclusive. This monitoring site (using an FDMS) recorded elevated readings between 20:00 and 23:00. Only hourly readings are available from this instrument which peaked at 116ug/m3 between 21:00 and 22:00. A picture of the smoke plume taken by Jeff Hervel from 12th floor of hotel in Wembley. Note below All measurements given are provisional.Note: The FDMS (Filter Dynamics Measurement System) is a more advanced version of the TEOM (Tapered Element Oscillating Microbalance) and is better at measuring the part of the particles which is volatile and may evaporate or react. The VCM (Volatile Correction M.....
Source: BBC News
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