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Impact of Ethanol Fuels on Regulated Tailpipe Emissions
Technical Paper
2012-01-0872
ISSN: 0148-7191, e-ISSN: 2688-3627
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English
Abstract
Flexible fuel vehicle production has been steadily increasing in
the US over the past fifteen years. Ethanol is considered a
renewable fuel additive to gasoline which helps the US efforts in
minimizing the dependency on foreign oil. As a result, it is
becoming very hard to find pure gasoline which does not contain
some ethanol content at the pump in the US. The fuel currently
available at the pump contains close to 10% ethanol. The fuel and
evaporative systems components and materials on newer flexible fuel
vehicles are being designed to be tolerant of the 10% ethanol
content. There is a strong desire from ethanol producers to
increase the ethanol content up to a 20% level. This is still being
debated by the Environmental Protection Agency and a final decision
has not been made yet but will be announced by the upcoming Tier 3
Notice of Public Rule Making (NPRM) in December of 2011. Early
signs from EPA are indicating the E15 would be the official
certification fuel with the upcoming Tier 3 NPRM. The California
Air Resources Board (CARB) proposed in the LEV III NPRM to use E10
as the official fuel for all required certification testing.
Many studies are being done investigating the impact of the 20%
ethanol fuel blend on the different components in the vehicle
especially on the evaporative systems. This study focuses on the
effect of ethanol content on tailpipe emissions including
carbonyls. The effect of ethanol addition to gasoline fuels on
regulated tailpipe emissions is investigated under different
ethanol content and different ambient temperatures. In addition to
THC, CO, NOx, CH₄ and CO₂ tailpipe emissions, the
analysis includes carbonyl measurement with formaldehydes,
acetaldehydes, and other 11 carbonyl species. Testing was conducted
on a 3.3 L Chrysler Town & Country vehicle at different ambient
temperatures (20°F or -7°C, 50°F or 10°C and 75°F or 24°C) with
indolene certification fuels containing 0, 10%, 20% and 85%
ethanol. The effect of varying the Reid vapor pressure (RVP) on
tailpipe emissions with E85 fuels is also discussed.
Recommended Content
Citation
Yassine, M. and La Pan, M., "Impact of Ethanol Fuels on Regulated Tailpipe Emissions," SAE Technical Paper 2012-01-0872, 2012, https://doi.org/10.4271/2012-01-0872.Also In
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