George G. Muntean

Future Automotive Aftertreatment Solutions: The 150°C Challenge Workshop Report

With future fuel economy standards enacted, the U.S. automotive manufacturers (OEMs) are committed to pursuing a variety of high risk/highly efficient stoichiometric and lean combustion strategies to achieve superior performance. In recognition of this need, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has partnered with domestic automotive manufacturers through U.S. DRIVE to develop these advanced technologies. However, before these advancements can be introduced into the U.S. market, they must also be able to meet increasingly stringent emissions requirements. A significant roadblock to this implementation is the inability of current catalyst and aftertreatment technologies to provide the required activity at the much lower exhaust temperatures that will accompany highly efficient combustion processes and powertrain strategies. Therefore, the goal of this workshop and report is to create a U.S. DRIVE emission control roadmap that will identify new materials and aftertreatment approaches that offer the potential for 90% conversion of emissions at low temperature (150°C) and are consistent with highly efficient combustion technologies currently under investigation within U.S. DRIVE Advanced Combustion and Emission Control (ACEC) programs.

Detailed characterization of particulate matter emitted by lean-burn gasoline direct injection engine

This study presents detailed characterization of the chemical and physical properties of particulate matter emitted by a 2.0-L BMW lean-burn turbocharged gasoline direct injection engine operated under a number of combustion strategies that include lean homogeneous, lean stratified, stoichiometric, and fuel-rich conditions. We characterized particulate matter number concentrations, size distributions, and the size, mass, compositions, and effective density of fractal and compact individual exhaust particles. For the fractal particles, these measurements yielded fractal dimension, average diameter of primary spherules, and number of spherules, void fraction, and dynamic shape factors as function of particle size. Overall, the particulate matter properties were shown to vary significantly with engine operation condition. Lean stratified operation yielded the most diesel-like size distribution and the largest particulate matter number and mass concentrations, with nearly all particles being fractal agglomerates composed of elemental carbon with small amounts of ash and organics. In contrast, stoichiometric operation yielded a larger fraction of ash particles, especially at low speed and low load. Three distinct forms of ash particles were observed, with their fractions strongly dependent on engine operating conditions: sub-50 nm ash particles, abundant at low speed and low load, ash-containing fractal particles, and large compact ash particles that significantly contribute to particulate matter mass loadings.

CRADA Final Report: Mechanisms of Sulfur Poisoning of NOx Adsorber Materials

This annual report will review progress of the initial 4 months of a three-year effort between Cummins Engine Company and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to understand and improve the performance and sulfur tolerance of the materials used in the NOx adsorber after-treatment technology in order to meet both performance and reliability standards required for diesel engines. The goal of this project is to enable NOx after-treatment technologies that will meet both EPA 2007 emission standards and customer cost, reliability and durability requirements. The project will consist of three phases. First, the efforts will focus on understanding the current limitation of capture, regeneration and durability of existing NOx adsorber materials, especially with respect to their sulfur tolerance. With this developing understanding, efforts will also be focused on the optimization of the NOx absorber chemical and material properties to increase performance and durability over many regeneration cycles. We anticipate that improved materials will be tested and evaluated, in partnership with Cummins, on diesel vehicle engines over expected operating conditions.