Since several decades, passenger cars and light duty vehicles (LDV) with spark-ignited engines reach full pollutant conversion during warm up conditions; the major challenge has been represented by the cold start and warming up strategies. The focus on technology developments of exhaust after treatment systems have been done in the thermal management in order to reach the warm up conditions as soon as possible. A new challenge is now represented by the Real Driving Emission (RDE) Regulation as this bring more various, and not any longer cycle defined, cold start conditions. On the other hand, once the full conversion has been reached, it would be beneficial for many Exhaust After Treatment System (EATS) components, e.g. for overall durability if the exhaust gas temperature could be lowered. To take significant further emission steps, approaching e.g. zero emission concepts, we investigate the use of Electrical Heating Catalyst (EHC) also including pre-heating.
The clear goal is to have the right temperature in the right place at the right time. Several approaches have been investigated in this paper regarding EATS architecture and EHC heating strategies to reach a significant cold start emissions reduction.
Hybrid Electrical Vehicles (HEV) applications are introduced in a rapid pace also allowing for more possibilities to support the emission strategies. Not only by additional propulsion but also including an EATS design supported by electric power.
Volvo Car Corporation and Continental Emitec have, with promising results, investigated alternative EATS designs embedding the EHC. The balance with vehicle properties (e.g. fuel consumption) is here of course important.