Technology options to reduce cold start emissions – electrical catalyst heaters

Authors

D. Rose, F. Kunath, B. Coulet, P. Nicolin, T. Boger, T. A. Collins, J. M. Grochocinski - Corning

Summary

European emissions legislation is expected to extend the boundary conditions for “Real Driving Emissions” testing. The extension of “Real” includes wider ambient conditions as well as broader coverage of anticipated customer driving cycles. Especially for gasoline engines this extension in boundary conditions results in even more demanding conditions during the cold start of the combustion engine. To address this need best available emission control technology will be needed, potentially combined with innovative or “new” technologies to improve air quality. Electrically heated catalyst systems could be one technology option to further reduce emissions during these cold starts and improve air quality in urban environments where cold start emissions still contribute to air quality. Besides the initial cold start of the combustion engine, electric catalyst heater technologies could also be helpful for low CO2 hybrid applications, minimizing the emissions impact from cold- and restarts under various temperature and load conditions. In this paper we will discuss the potential of electric catalyst heaters developed by Corning. The discussion will be based on experimental and simulation work. A wide range of systems were evaluated on engine benches and using prototype vehicle builds. The reported results are generated with different combinations of innovative technologies and operating strategies. The electric catalyst heater performance is impacted by many system variables that are discussed in detail in this paper.