As biorationals, plant oils offer numerous advantages such as being natural products, with low ecotoxicological side effects, and high biodegradability. In particular, drying glyceride plant oils, which are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, might be promising candidates for a more sustainable approach in the discussion about plant protection and the environment. Based on this, we tested the protective and curative efficacy of an oil-in-water-emulsion preparation using drying plant oils (linseed oil, tung oil) and a semi-drying plant oil (rapeseed oil) separately and in different mixtures. Plant oils were tested in greenhouse experiments (in vivo) on green beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) against bean rust (Uromyces appendiculatus). We observed that a 2% oil concentration showed no or very low phytotoxic effects on green beans. Both tested drying oils showed a protective control ranging from 53–100% for linseed oil and 32–100% for tung oil. Longer time intervals of 6 days before inoculation (6dbi) were less effective than shorter intervals of 2dbi. Curative efficacies were lower with a maximum of 51% for both oils when applied 4 days past inoculation (4dpi) with the fungus. Furthermore, the results showed no systemic effects. These results underline the potential of drying plant oils as biorationals in sustainable plant protection strategies.

Black carbon (BC) mass concentration from internal combustion engines can be quantified using a variety of different BC measurement techniques. We compare the relative response of several commercial instruments with different measurement principles to different types of marine exhaust emissions. Exhaust samples were generated using a high-speed 4-stroke marine diesel engine at various engine operating conditions from low to high engine loads. Three different fuel types-diesel, distillate marine oil grade A (DMA) and intermediate fuel oil (IFO)-were used to generate soot particles with a wide range of physical, chemical and optical properties. Based on the standard deviation of the results at all engine conditions evaluated in the present study, the overall spread between the instruments was 24% for diesel, 30% for DMA and 37% for IFO samples. For samples with extremely high organic content (at 10% engine power), the agreement was poor and the standard deviation of the mass concentrations estimated from different instruments was 50% for diesel with OC/EC approximate to 45 and 72% for DMA with OC/EC approximate to 280. For IFO particles, more scattered mass concentrations were reported by different instruments at all engine loads, possibly due to very complex chemical composition and different optical properties in comparison with well-characterized soot particles. We explain the differences in reported values by combining information on exhaust composition with the measurement principles used in each instrument.

A differential mobility analyzer along with a centrifugal particle mass analyzer was employed to study the effect of fuel type on effective density for nascent and non-volatile particles generated by a marine diesel engine. The engine was operated at 1500 rpm at loads between 10% and 100%. Three different fuels were evaluated: diesel fuel, distillate marine oil Grade A, and intermediate fuel oil. A combination of a thermodenuder and a catalytic stripper was used to remove semi-volatile materials in order to measure the denuded particulate effective densities. Particle mass concentrations were quantified using thermal-optical analysis as well as integrated particle size distribution. Relatively good agreement between IPSD and TOA was observed for undenuded particle mass concentrations, however IPSD underestimated the mass concentrations measured for denuded particles by approximately 76%. The results revealed that more than 93% of undenuded particles from diesel and DM-A fuels were composed of semi-volatile materials. The denuded effective density values at some test conditions were significantly higher than the effective density of soot particle from other sources specifically for particles smaller than 100 nm generated from IFO. We hypothesized that the high effective density values are in part due to large proportion of metal-containing tarballs. By comparing the measured effective densities with a literature effective density function for soot, we were able to predict the metal mass concentrations measured by ICP-MS with reasonable accuracy in most cases.