MIT's plasmatron cuts diesel bus emissions, promises better gas engine ...( CAMBRIDGE Mass.--A bus in Indiana is t...)

The work will be the subject of an invited talk next Thursday, October 30, at a meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Plasma Physics in Albuquerque, NM.

The researchers and colleagues from industry also reported plasmatron advances at a U.S. Department of Energy Diesel Engine Emissions Reduction (DEER) meeting in August. There they reported that the device, used with an exhaust treatment catalyst on a diesel engine bus, removed up to 90 percent of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the bus's emissions. Nitrogen oxides are the primary components of smog.

The plasmatron reformer also cut in half the amount of fuel needed for the removal process. "The absorption catalyst approach under consideration for diesel exhaust NOx removal requires additional fuel to work," explained Daniel R. Cohn, one of the leaders of the team and head of the Plasma Technology Division at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). "The plasmatron reformer reduced that amount of fuel by a factor of two compared to a system without the plasmatron."

Cohn noted that the plasmatron reformer also allowed the NOx absorption catalyst to be effective at the low exhaust temperatures characteristic of urban use.

These results indicate that the plasmatron reformer, in conjunction with an NOx absorber catalyst, could be one of the most promising ways to meet stricter emissions limits for all heavy trucks and buses. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to institute the new limits by 2007.

"Diesel-engine vehicles generally do not have exhaust treatment systems," Cohn said, adding that treating diesel exhaust is much more difficult than gasoline exhaust.

Under development for the last six years, the p
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Contact: Elizabeth Thomson
thomson@mit.edu
617-258-5402
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
21-Oct-2003