67 The LowC-project: safe and sustainable low-carbon fuels for heavy-duty, aviation, and maritime sectors

Abstract Heavy-duty vehicles (including non-road mobile machinery, eg excavators), aircrafts and ships are contributing significantly to emissions of green-house gases and health-relevant air pollutants, such as fine airborne particulate matter (PM2.5) as well as emerging pollutants. For decarbonization of the sector, several new fuels, ranging from hydrogen via ammonia to synthetic eFuels are considered. An important question is how these potential new fuels will influence emissions of air pollutants and climate relevant compounds. LowC will address if these new fuels for high-power engines have an impact on the emissions of air pollutants and climate-drivers, considering also upstream emissions and secondary pollutants formed under different atmospheric conditions (daytime photochemical aging or night-time atmospheric radical chemistry). LowC will apply a series of state-of-the-art technologies to generate and characterize the emissions and assess the effects in lung cell models. The toxicological testing will be applied in a tiered manner (screening and in-depth verification), in line with visions of Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century. Emission data, including regulated and emerging pollutants, will feed into integrated assessment and atmospheric transport models, currently used to underpin EU policy and the Zero Pollution Action Plan, to assess impacts on the EU environmental policy objectives. Finally, LowC will evaluate health and environmental impacts and provide guidance and recommendations to ensure that solutions to reduce CO2 emissions and prevent climate change are safe and sustainable. The work is supported by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No. 101192913.