Evaluation of a Self-Cleaning Particulate Control System for Diesel Engines

Self-cleaning trap configurations have been developed and evaluated for removing particulate emissions from diesel engine exhaust streams. The main feature of this approach is that the traps are being cleaned continuously using compressed air, and thus, do not require thermal or catalytic regeneration to remove the collected particles. The results of this study indicate that the present system, employing ceramic wall flow monolith filters, performs well in simultaneously filtering the exhaust and removing the captured particles from the filter element into a fabric bag. Successful cleaning of the trap was evidenced by a quasi-steady state behavior of the exhaust back pressure that was reached in a fairly short period of time.