The increasing preoccupation of the environmental impact of automotive vehicles has led to more stringent harmful gases emissions regulations all around the world. In the case of heavy duty diesel vehicles the Brazilian regulations have always been developed according to the existing European ones (Euro), for example the current regulation in Brazil (called Proconve P7 which was introduced in January 2012) follows the same requirements of the Euro V with some minor differences. Europe (remaining the technological leadership position in the automotive segment) has introduced a more stringent emissions regulation called Euro VI in January 2014.
As a consequence, the applied technologies for exhaust gas after-treatment to meet such requirements (like the Selective Catalytic Reduction System (SCR), the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) and the Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC)) improved quickly and reached a very high level of efficiency and application complexity, requiring improvements to the diesel fuel quality concerning its sulfur content to ensure appropriate performance and long useful life of such systems.
Considering a possible future regulation Proconve P8 being based on the current European Euro VI and the low supply of low-sulfur diesel in Brazil, this paper presents the impacts on the emissions control systems of a Euro VI diesel engine using high-sulfur diesel in a long-term condition, in order to identify the new challenges for the future emissions regulation applied to the real-world condition of the Brazilian market.
With this purpose a study of the new requirements of the Euro VI regulations, a prospect of the sulfur content evolution in the Brazilian diesel and a complete analysis of each system individually as well as of the real impact on the final emissions of the regulated gases were performed according to the specified homologation cycles.