Effect of fuel formulation on soot properties and regeneration of diesel particulate filters

A critical requirement for implementation of particulate filters on diesel applications is having a low "break even temperature" (BET), defined as the exhaust temperature at which particulate removal occurs at roughly the same rate as particulate deposition. This needs to occur at sufficiently low temperatures either to fit within the exhaust temperature range of the typical duty cycle for a diesel vehicle or to require a minimum of active regeneration. Since catalytic coating on the diesel particulate filter was used in this study, one important factor in lowering the BET is catalyst activity for NO conversion to NO2, which can be adversely affected by sulfur content in the fuel, because the sulfur dioxide generated during diesel combustion can poison catalyst activity. However, a second important factor that significantly affects DPF regeneration behavior is particulate reactivity, which is related to the chemical and physical properties of diesel particulates. Differences in diesel combustion characteristics and fuel formulation can be a source of variation in these soot properties.; The first phase of this work considered low sulfur diesel fuel (325 ppm sulfur), ultra low sulfur fuel (15 ppm sulfur) and 20 wt.% biodiesel blends. The lowest break even temperature was observed for the 325 ppm sulfur fuel blended with 20 wt.% biodiesel, due in part to increased engine-out NOx emissions with the B20 blend, which shows that engine-out exhaust composition can be as or more important than sulfur content. Furthermore, examination of the soot generated with these fuels shows a variation in the nanostructure and the oxidative reactivity for soots derived from the different fuels.; The second phase of work has been performed by adding neat alternative fuels such as Biodiesel (B100) and Fisch-Tropsch (FT) fuel. B100 soot displays a similar initial soot structure as soot from three other fuels, ultra low sulfur diesel, B20 (a 20 wt.% blend of biodiesel and ultra low sulfur diesel) and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) diesel. However, B100 soot shows five times higher oxidation rate at 500°C on a mass basis than FT soot. It is evident that more reactive surface oxygen groups are present in the B100 soot and this favors a faster surface burning that is accompanied by internal structural change. In contrast, FT soot shows the slowest oxidation rate due to a lesser amount of surface oxygen groups resulting in less structural change through a suppression of surface burning. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...