MOBILAB - The Mobile Laboratory

The MOBILAB mobile laboratory has been in operation since 2016. It is equipped with a comprehensive gas phase and particle analysis, which allows highly time-resolved measurements. It can be operated while driving, or stationary when there is electrical power available.

Measurement Concept

In fixed measuring stations long time series of measured values are obtained at one hour time resolution. In contrast, we measure with MOBILAB episodically with a high time resolution of one second or better, so that we can also detect subtle differences in the emission of pollutants.

The scheme shows the concentration of a pollutant when passing through a city. The exhaust fumes of individual vehicles are measured as peaks, further contributions are the local background, which is the value obtained after intermixing the exhaust fumes, and the regional background, which is the concentration of the pollutant outside the city.

Scientific Questions

• How high is the pollution load and how is the load distributed at a small scale?
• How much reaches the city from the outskirts?
• What amount of pollutant is emitted per CO2, as a measure of the amount of fuel used?
• Are new, non-detected pollutants emitted by new technologies?

Projects

Measurements from MOBILAB are used to investigate how small-scale pollutants are distributed throughout the city at a small scale within the project Urban Climate Under Change. Small scale models are developed with the help of the measurement data, which can describe the highly variable pollutant distribution in the city.

In the project ALASKA the impact of pollutants effect on the membrane of fuel cells is investigated.