Synthetic Gas Bench (SGB) Tests Simulating Real and Dynamic Driving Conditions: A New and Cost Attractive Method for TWC Evaluation

The introduction of vehicle emission and fuel economy standards (CO₂) accelerates the introduction of new platform and powertrain combinations into the market place. All of these combinations will require unique exhaust gas aftertreatment systems that comply with the current emission legislation. The optimization of each unique aftertreatment solution requires the proper application of catalyst technologies at the lowest PGM concentrations. The optimization process needs to be fast, reliable, realistic and cost attractive. It is arguable that performing the aftertreatment optimization on a chassis dynamometer is variable, time consuming and expensive. This work demonstrates how a synthetic gas bench (SGB) can be used to simulate stoichiometric engine emissions and aftertreatment performance. The SGB procedure duplicates the vehicle NEDC engine-out emissions and catalyst heat-up profiles. SGB results will show that it is feasible to distinguish between different three-way catalyst technologies using the NEDC and that the results correlate well with evaluations performed on a dynamic engine bench. Finally, it is shown that the SGB NEDC approach could further be used for PGM optimization of existing catalyst systems.