Fuel Borne Catalyst Assisted Diesel Particulate Filter Regeneration in Current and Legacy Retrofitted Vehicles in China

Retrofitting current and legacy diesel vehicles with Diesel Particulate Filters (DPFs) and associated aftertreatment technology has long been an option to enable vehicles with older engines to meet specific regional emissions legislation. A major positive is the ability for enforced vehicle retrofitting to have an immediate impact on the local air quality in urban environments without vehicle owners having to purchase new vehicles. Retrofit in China in comparison to Europe, for example, is in its relative infancy as China's emission legislation rapidly moves towards adopting European like limits whilst available diesel fuel continues to have variable sulphur concentrations.

This paper details the results from a two phase retrofit-study conducted to investigate the ability for Fuel Borne Catalyst (FBC) technology to regenerate DPFs in retrofitted Light Duty (LD) vehicles in China. Phase 1 discusses an initial 100,000 km field trial across China over a pre-selected route to gain proof of concept. Phase 2 details a multiple vehicle study run in Tianjin using an FBC-DPF strategy. Both trial phases highlight that FBC technology is a robust and reliable DPF regeneration strategy for use in China and in other areas, particularly, where variable sulphur level diesel fuel may be present.