Danish clean-air technology is being piloted on buses in North London.
The London Evening Standard said that the founders of Amminex — whose system uses ammonia to ‘scrub’ away more than three quarters of nitrogen dioxide in exhaust fumes — won an inventor award from the European Patent Office.
The Amminex technology has been tested by Metroline for two years at its Holloway garage, and test results have suggested that the technology could save hundreds of lives a year if rolled out across the Transport for London (TfL) network in the capital.
The system — which can be retrofitted for a few thousand pounds per vehicle — harnesses normally volatile ammonia gas by releasing it in a steady trickle into the exhaust system. The reaction with the nitrogen dioxide turns much of the fumes into harmless nitrogen and water vapour.
Trials were conducted on seven-year-old diesel buses and the scrubbing process was found to perform twice as well as other methods. It will now be fitted to 55 Metroline double-deckers.
Amminex Chief Technology Officer, Tue Johannessen, said: “The real success would be if this is applied to all vehicles related to city driving — delivery trucks, vans, garbage trucks, buses and cars. This is where we can make a really big impact.”
London breached annual EU nitrogen dioxide limits for the whole of 2016 just a week after the New Year started.
