Klying environmental organizations Germany has not leased for itself. The Netherlands knows them and France knows them too. However, last spring the association “Respire” (breathing in German) did not file a lawsuit against automobile or oil companies before the Paris court, but against the RATP. The state-owned company operates the metro and light rail in Paris. So local public transport, which is actually an ally of green interests.
But Respire accuses the company of endangering the health of its customers because the air pollution at the train stations is too high. You don’t want to stay long in the subway shaft, but the fine dust pollution is all the higher. In 2015, the French environmental authority measured precisely: With an average of 100 micrograms of particles per cubic meter, it was more than three times as high as outdoors on the streets of Paris.
The advance comes at the right time for the French company Tallano Technologie. After the foundation in 2012, the technology of “Tamic” was developed and ready for use. The system offers a technical solution to stop the fine dust where it mostly occurs: on the brakes. The state railway company SNCF is already cooperating with Tallano, the Île-de-France region has a stake in the company, and the waste giant Veolia recently got involved because the secondary use of the magnesium or copper particles collected can be lucrative. Reason enough to send a prototype onto the rails. One of the light rail trains, the RER, that runs across Paris is now equipped with the brake vacuum cleaner.
Filters also conceivable for commercial vehicles and cars
Tamic is an active anti-fine dust system. If the driver applies the brakes on his train, a turbine generates a vacuum. It sucks the fine particles into a filter, which are rubbed off on each wheel and each axle between the brake disc and brake shoes. Tamic reduces these emissions by 85 percent, says Bert Stegkemper, who has been on the start-up’s supervisory board since 2014 and is now responsible for establishing the technology on the German market. The German GmbH is being founded these days, and talks are already being held with Deutsche Bahn, even if pilot projects like those in France have not yet been agreed.
Where exactly can the groove in the brake pad go without compromising thermal properties or mechanical integrity? Tallano tried this out on test stands.
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Image: Tallano Technologie / TAMIC®-System
However, the rail is not the only place where such a filter system can work. Tallano also has commercial vehicles, buses and trucks in mind, and cars. Because even if the car manufacturers themselves are hesitating, a lot is happening on the developers’ side. The German filter specialist Mann + Hummel is competing with a similar product. Except that its system passively captures the fine dust on the brakes. For this purpose, a housing filled with metal fiber fleece sits above the brake caliper, into which the fine particles are thrown every time the brake is applied. According to the company, 80 percent of the particle mass can be collected.
The filter system of the French competition requires active electronic control, so the architecture of the disc brakes is almost indistinguishable from ordinary ones. The system has already been tested on a Renault Zoe in Paris, and Tallano has tested it on an RS 5 together with Audi. Mainly to find out whether the braking characteristics change. After all, approval can only be given if the safety-relevant technology works without restrictions. “The only thing we do on the brake pad is make a small groove,” explains Stegkemper. “But that has no effect on the braking behavior.” The vacuum generated by the turbine can pull the fine dust into a thin hose and finally into the filter via the groove. The heat dissipation does not change as a result, nor does the mechanical integrity of the brake pads. Neither water nor ice clogged or silted up the filter. The negative pressure is metered in such a way that it only absorbs the suspended matter.
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