Emission control technologies to meet current and future european vehicle emission legislation

The paper reviews the technologies available to meet the exhaust emission regulations for cars, light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles and motorcycles adopted by the European Union for implementation during the new century. This includes low light-off catalysts, more thermally durable catalysts, improved substrate technology, hydrocarbon adsorbers, electrically heated catalysts, DeNOx catalysts and adsorbers, selective catalytic reduction and diesel particulate filters. The paper presents results from a recent heavy-duty diesel test programme showing that EU 5 emission limits can be met with a 50% safety margin with a Catalyst-Based Diesel Particulate Filter (CB-DPF), a Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system and a Clean-up Catalyst applied to a standard series production EU 3 heavy duty diesel (HDD) engine, even after a severe ageing cycle, including high sulphur fuel misfuelling.