[Dumbledore]

Hello, I can't afford my car anymore so I started biking to school despite the perilous journey that it is.  I am forced to take a busy street, and on average there are about 100 cars per minute that pass me.  As a result I know that I am getting an unhealthy dosage of carbon monoxide and lead among other things.  To fix this I want wear a gas mask on the bike ride to school, a gas mask that will protect against the most toxins for the least cost.  Would anyone here happen to know what type of respirator I am looking for?  Thank you so very much if you do! 

[macman104]

I don't have any thoughts as to what type of cheap mask you could wear, but I personally wouldn't worry about it.

[Dumbledore]

Originally I was going to say: "before you assume I'm a hypochondriac please educate yourself on this topic". 

Put simply, you won't die in a day from busy-street pollution, but you will eventually and you'll develop serious respiratory/cancerous diseases in the mean time.

If you aren't convinced that is fine, but I just care so much about my neurons as I need them to learn and make discoveries, so I really need your help fellow chemists on helping to save some of my neurons.  Chemistry isn't my subject I'm afraid!   

[Borek]

As a result I know that I am getting an unhealthy dosage of carbon monoxide and lead among other things.

Are you sure about the lead part? I haven't seen leaded gasoline for several years, and Poland was not the first place to switch to unleaded.

[Dumbledore]

Oh so that is what unleaded means!  Well I was reading an article about exhaust fumes that said lead, but come to think of it, I remember it was talking about old cars.  That's good, but I'm still not sure which respirator to buy...  I chose this forum because isn't organic chemistry the study of carbon based molecules?  I figured gas is a carbon based molecule so you guys might know what type of molecules I need to shield myself from, and consequently which respirator I need. 

[movies]

The most toxic emissions are probably NO_x species.  The catalytic converter takes care of most of these, but some do slip past.  There are a few carbon based compounds that are pretty toxic too, notably benzopyrenes, and they are formed by any sort of combustion, even your gas stove at home.  I don't know anything about respirators though, so I don't know what is good to keep these out.

I would say overall that your exposure to emissions doesn't change very much by biking instead of driving.  Cars have air filters, but those are really only effective at removing particulate matter, any gaseous stuff will make it through.  Wearing a decent respirator is going to make it a lot more difficult to bike too.  Those things aren't made for use during exercise.

[enahs]

Also, if you do not clean your respirator regularly and properly (which might be very expensive), you are going to pretty quickly concentrate any thing bad for you that is in tiny amounts and not very likely to be toxic into a large dosage that is bad for you.

[HP]

For small molecule like carbon monooxide (CO) even the active carbon filter in a conventional military gas mask is not effective in detaining it. For this purposes when theres an assumption for high concentration of CO then as special halcopirite holder is attached to such masks. This extra holder is filled with a special metal oxide mixture which has strong oxidazing action and oxidize the CO to far less toxic CO2. Of course the concentration of CO in the traffick air is usually too low to cause something more than headache but if you are passing  some close outlift like long traffic subway then there's a real danger for serious CO poisoning (+NO, NO2 and so on).
In conclusion i dont know for any effective mask protection which to prevent breathing the molecular poisons in traffic out gases except the conventional dust masks which can sorb the colloidal particles..

[Dumbledore]

It sounds as though I'm out of luck then.  (As are the rest of us.)  It's a real shame we can't move forward with some of our cleaner travel related technologies.