Paul Richard Phillips

Cleaning the Air We Breathe - Controlling Diesel Particulate Emissions from Passenger Cars

The mechanism of formation of particulate matter (PM) in the diesel engine combustion process is outlined, and the increasingly stringent PM emissions limits in current and projected environmental legislation are noted in the context of the increasing use of fuel-efficient high-performance diesel engines in passenger cars. The types of filter systems for abating diesel particulates are described, as are the principles of filter regeneration – the controlled oxidation of PM retained in the filter, to prevent an accumulation which would ultimately block the filter and degrade engine performance. PM is characterised in terms of both particle size (coarse, accumulation mode, and nucleation mode nanoparticles) and chemical composition, and the filtration issues specific to the various PM types are outlined. Likely future trends in filter design are projected, including multifunctional systems combining PM filtration with NOx control catalysts to meet yet more stringent legislative requirements, including European Stage 5 and 6, and the so called ‘Bin 5’ levels in the U.S.A.

Performance Aspects of New Catalyzed Diesel Soot Filters Based on Advanced Oxide Filter Materials

Catalyzed soot filters are being fitted to an increasing range of diesel-powered passenger cars in Europe. While the initial applications used silicon carbide wallflow filters, oxide-based filters are now being successfully applied. Oxide-based filters can offer performance and system cost advantages for applications involving both a catalyzed filter with a separate oxidation catalyst, and a catalyzed filter-only that incorporates all necessary catalytic oxidation functions. Advanced diesel catalyst technologies have been developed for alternative advanced oxide filter materials, including aluminum titanate and advanced cordierite. In the development of the advanced catalyzed filters, improvements were made to the filter material microstructures that were coupled with new catalyst formulations and novel coating processes that had synergistic effects to give enhanced overall performance. This paper discusses relevant system performance criteria including pressure-drop, emissions, thermalmechanical influences and the overall system durability in tests under certain controlled test conditions.

Performance of NOx Adsorber Emissions Control Systems for Diesel Engines

Increasingly stringent Diesel vehicle emissions legislation around the world means that advanced aftertreatment systems may be required to achieve the required nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions rather than through engine control measures alone. As in lean-burn gasoline applications, NOx adsorber systems offer great potential for high level NOx conversion in Diesel exhaust, and their use on Diesel engines is an area of intense interest for possible use in light-duty and heavy-duty applications. This paper is concerned with the performance of advanced NOx adsorber catalysts developed specifically for the requirements of light-duty Diesel vehicles. Laboratory and engine bench data are discussed that demonstrate NOx conversions in excess of 90% over a wide temperature window can be achieved. The durability characteristics of these catalysts are also reported. The ability to tune the NOx adsorber formulation to an operating window for a specific application and/or position in the exhaust is important for the optimisation of a full emissions control system. This paper presents operating temperature windows of some optimised NOx adsorber catalysts for maximisation of the operating window at low and high temperatures.