Retired DU professor Donald Stedman is working to develop a new method for a faster, more productive way to measure pollution from larger semi-trucks as an extension of his 2006 invention, the Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test (FEAT).

FEAT is now licensed to Air Care Colorado, which performs the “RapidScreen” testing on the highways.

“RapidScreen” works by using infrared and ultraviolet beams to measure the level of harmful molecules that passing cars leave behind.

Stedman is currently working with Gary Bishop, a research engineer in DU’s department of chemistry and biochemistry, to continue the machine’s development.

Over the years, he worked with 15 undergraduate and graduate students as well.

Stedman’s more recent research, ongoing since 2008, was based on using this technology for larger semi-trucks.

“Measuring heavy-duty diesel emissions on the road as they drive by is relatively new in the field because it’s hard to do,” said Brent Schuchmann, a recently graduated grad student who worked with Stedman.  “The reason is because their exhaust pipes are 13-14 feet above the ground.  Our instrument needs to sit on scaffolding that we set up next to the roadway securing it with guy wires to prevent the wind and road vibrations from moving it, which causes the instrument to not work properly.”

According to Schuchmann, this research has already started to help make positive changes in auto emissions.

“In California, right now, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are expediting the state rule to get rid of older trucks on the road and to use better emission control technology,” he said.

In addition, Schuchmann claims that while measuring the effects of this change, the group was the first to discover a side effect created by natural gas using trucks.

Instead of converting one pollutant to nitrogen, it was converted to ammonia, an unregulated and illegal pollutant.

According to Stedman, the future of FEAT is hard to predict.

“We have a whole new idea as to how to monitor heavy duty truck emissions as they drive by,” he said. “The State of California has a 39-page request for proposal out, which we are busy responding to. If we win the bid, that will take my research out to a new distance – a final report would be issued in 2018.”

Beyond that, Stedman isn’t sure where his invention will go.

“I would love to see a future in which [our technology] is used instead of the current emission testing,” he said.

In 2006, his initial  research revealed that less than 5 percent of the vehicles in Colorado are responsible for more than half of the automobile emissions released into the environment.

Air Care Colorado allows cars who undergo two clean RapidScreen recordings in a 10-month window to bypass the required standard emissions test. Stedman said he believes it is more important and more efficient to only test top-emitting cars that account for half of the total auto pollution.

The project officially started in 1987, although Stedman has unofficially been working on it since the late seventies.

“As usual with research, [what motivated me to start the project] was the combination of a new idea, the recognition that this idea has value and the further step and success in persuading some entity to support the research with money,” said Stedman.

In this case the supporting entity was the Colorado Office of Energy Conservation, which is now called the Office of Energy, Management and Conservation.

Stedman claims that FEAT itself saves a lot of money in conserved energy.

“About 200,000 vehicles receive a RapidScreen emission test passing grade each year without having to go to the test and wait in line,” he said. “If we assume that 10 miles of driving are saved at 20 miles per gallon, about 100,000 gallons of fuel is saved. Assuming each gallon costs approximately $3, $300,000 are saved each year. This annual amount is a lot more money than we ever got in the first place to invent and develop the device.”

The invention has brought in over $4 million in patent license fees for DU, but according to Stedman there are many more benefits that have come from the research.

“[FEAT has provided] a much better understanding for real motor vehicle emissions,” he said.

His research also shows the top 1 percent of exhaust-emitting cars produce “a whopping 30 percent of the total emissions.”

Stedman said he doesn’t understand how these cars can pass fuel efficiency tests because of these alarming statistics.

The new technology is spreading all over the world. Twenty-one countries, including New Zealand, Switzerland and China, are already using the invention.

Over 200,000 vehicle emissions have been read.