Breakthrough ArvinMeritor Technology Promises Revolutionary Approach to Extensive Exhaust Emissions Regulation Changes
Lab tests indicate 50 percent better fuel
consumption than competing technologies
TROY, Mich., (June 11,
2004) — ArvinMeritor, Inc. (NYSE:
ARM) today unveiled its Plasma Fuel Reformer, a breakthrough
exhaust emissions technology that could revolutionize the way commercial and
light vehicle manufacturers meet the upcoming 2010 diesel engine emission
standards. ArvinMeritor’s Plasma Fuel Reformer produces a hydrogen-rich
gas from the diesel or gasoline fuel on board the vehicle that can be used to
enable emission control systems. Aggressive in-vehicle testing is now
under way in real-world applications of hydrogen-enabled after-treatment systems
on heavy and light trucks and buses. The Plasma Fuel Reformer is expected
to be available for production in 2010.
The Plasma Fuel Reformer is part of the company’s
Clean Air Solutions portfolio. The portfolio is to provide original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs) with unique technologies and products to meet the
2010 regulations, widely viewed as the most aggressive clean air regulatory
shake-up in decades.
The first use of the hydrogen-rich gas is likely to
be in commercial vehicles, where it can be used as a lower-cost, highly
efficient, clean-burning, fast-starting regenerator of particulate matter (PM)
and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) filters, which will soon be used in diesel exhaust
gas after-treatment. Over the long term, the hydrogen-rich gas may also be
used to greatly enhance the combustion efficiency of gasoline
engines.
“The Plasma Fuel Reformer produces hydrogen onboard
and on demand from the vehicle’s fuel,” said Pedro Ferro, vice president and
general manager, ArvinMeritor Commercial Vehicle Emissions. “It’s also
compact, has a rapid start-up, a low electrical power drain and an excellent
transient response. It can efficiently convert diesel and gasoline
fuel. Most of all – because the hydrogen is created efficiently on the
vehicle and used as needed – there is no need for any kind of hydrogen storage
on the vehicle. There is also no need for an all-new roadside hydrogen
distribution infrastructure – two unsolved issues of other hydrogen
systems.”
The first application of the Plasma Fuel Reformer
is likely to be in commercial trucks and buses. U.S. standards for the
commercial vehicle industry call for diesel emissions to be reduced by
approximately 95 percent from current levels starting in 2007, with all vehicles
required to meet the strictest standards by 2010. European regulations are
similarly severe. It is expected that all manufacturers will need to
implement a combination of exhaust after-treatment systems with engine design
and control changes (such as exhaust gas recirculation).
“Upcoming diesel engine regulation changes are
equal to or greater than the U.S. regulation changes for gasoline engines in the
‘60s and ‘70s,” said Ferro. “Just as the former Arvin Industries helped
solved the emissions issues of the 1970s with the development of the catalytic
converter, the company is poised to assist engine, truck and automotive
manufacturers in meeting what is likely the biggest environmental challenge of
our generation.”
Diesel PM and NOx traps need to be “regenerated”
regularly. The hydrogen-rich gas enables this to be done very
efficiently.
“Our tests show that the Plasma Fuel Reformer’s
hydrogen-rich gas regenerates a NOx trap with about half the diesel fuel than
conventional methods,” said Ferro. “A hydrogen-enabled NOx trap can also
be significantly smaller, and is much more resistant to sulfur poisoning.
It can also be regenerated over a much broader temperature range than if diesel
fuel is used. We have also shown that it’s possible to regenerate our
hydrogen-enabled NOx trap when the truck is idling, which simply isn’t possible
with conventional methods.”
Plasma Fuel Reformer has gasoline
potential, too
ArvinMeritor is also aggressively pursuing highly
promising applications of the Plasma Fuel Reformer technology to gasoline
combustion engines, and is beginning in-vehicle testing in Europe this
summer. To this end, the company has partnered with Ingenieurgesellschaft
Auto und Verkehr (IAV), the renowned automotive research and development
provider based in Chemnitz, Germany. ArvinMeritor has already demonstrated
in engine dynamometer testing the hydrogen-rich gas’s potential to enable a next
generation of extremely fuel efficient, low-exhaust emission and lightweight
gasoline engines.
“Our Hydrogen-Enabled Combustion Engine (HECE)
development and testing has already produced some spectacular results,” said
Ferro. “We’ve confirmed that our hydrogen-rich gas has real promise to
achieve ultra-lean turbocharged operation of gasoline engines, with improved
fuel economy and dramatically reduced exhaust emissions. Our optimism in
the Plasma Fuel Reformer technology is even stronger now than it was at the
beginning. There is much greater unrealized potential to come for this
remarkable technology to provide clean air solutions that are efficient,
reliable and cost-effective,” he said.
Plasma Fuel Reformer
background
ArvinMeritor has utilized its industry-leading
engineering and manufacturing expertise to take an innovation pioneered by the
Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) and apply the technology into systems that can be mass-produced. The
company has exclusive rights to the use of the technology for the licensed
applications from MIT. It is making significant progress and has reaped
major reductions in the size, cost and complexity of these systems through many
hours of aggressive re-design and test-bed development. ArvinMeritor
currently holds 15 patents for the Plasma Fuel Reformer technology, either
patented by ArvinMeritor or licensed from MIT. Additional patent
applications are pending.
The Plasma Fuel Reformer uses an electrical plasma
(a strong, continuous “spark”) to partially combust a mixture of air and
hydrocarbon fuel. There is deliberately insufficient air to support
combustion so that, instead of burning, the fuel dissociates to create a
hydrogen-rich gas. That gas can be used to improve or even enable the
operation of other exhaust emission systems.
Initial development of a Plasma Fuel Reformer
required as much as 2,000 watts of electrical energy to operate. A measure
of the progress is that today’s unit uses an average of less than 100
watts. Full production systems are likely to be even lower. Early
systems took many seconds to produce hydrogen from cold exhaust, an important
disadvantage in real-world use, as emissions are highest at this time. The
latest versions are running in less than a second. And the first
prototypes only produced hydrogen at just one flow rate. Today’s
prototypes manage transient or varying flow demands equally well.
Diesel application development of the Plasma Fuel
Reformer is being led in North America with MIT at ArvinMeritor’s Commercial
Vehicle Engineering Center in Columbus, Ind., its commercial vehicle center of
emissions expertise. ArvinMeritor’s Air and Emissions Technologies
operation (in Augsburg, Germany) is the leading global supplier of emission
control systems for light vehicles. This operation is participating in the
gasoline engine development with IAV. This two-prong strategy leverages
ArvinMeritor’s global reach and breadth, and aligns engineering responsibility
with product-specific expertise.
Development of the Plasma Fuel Reformer technology
is supported in part by a grant from the State of Indiana 21st Century Research
and Technology Fund.
ArvinMeritor, Inc. is a premier $8-billion global
supplier of a broad range of integrated systems, modules and components to the
motor vehicle industry. The company serves light vehicle, commercial
truck, trailer and specialty original equipment manufacturers and related
aftermarkets. Headquartered in Troy, Mich., ArvinMeritor employs
approximately 32,000 people at more than 150 manufacturing facilities in 27
countries. ArvinMeritor common stock is traded on the New York Stock
Exchange under the ticker symbol ARM. For more information, visit the
company’s Web site at: http://www.arvinmeritor.com/.
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