Leveraging the best of both worlds

Combustion and aftertreatment technologies help engine manufacturers balance performance with emissions reduction.

Within the off-highway world, a flurry of development has been under way for some time as OEMs continue to refine the ideal technologies to satisfy the looming wave of Tier 4 emissions standards. One look to the on-highway market reveals a number of commercially available technologies that have gained wide acceptance for treating diesel exhaust emissions, typically using some form of oxidation catalyst or particulate filtering, or some combination of both.

While such exhaust management technologies are firmly established in the on-highway world, many off-highway OEMs and their suppliers have focused some of their most immediate efforts on the engine itself and the potential for avoiding or reducing emissions generation through more complete control of the combustion process. Facilitating a lower-temperature, more complete combustion reaction could help to repress the formation of the most troubling pollutants associated with diesel engines-oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulates, commonly referred to as soot.