Tickford Engelhard Makes Catalyst Conform w/o Recalibrating

An automaker in the Far East had a mature 2-L model that already met the U.S. transitional low-emissions-vehicle (TLEV) standards.

It hoped that, with minimal modifications, the vehicle could continue being marketed in the U.S. under LEV and OBDII regulations, until the company's next generation vehicle became available.

Because this was to be a short-term measure, the LEV upgrade needed to be achieved without significantly changing either hardware or software. The automaker turned to Tickford Engelhard and gave it eight months to deliver a fully compliant vehicle.

Tickford Engelhard analyzed the emission characteristics and identified NOx as the principal threat to non-compliance. It decided to focus on shortening the catalyst light-off time by changing catalyst formulation and substrate dimensions

These measures were subject to considerable restrictions since any new formulation had to operate satisfactorily under the existing on-board diagnostics regime and with the existing TLEV calibration.

Theoretical calculations identified two promising formulation scenarios. In view of the short timeframe, aging tests were run on both systems simultaneously to determine the MIL-on criteria for each at 50,000 and 100,000 miles under the same calibration conditions.

The tests were completed within the scheduled timeline, and the results indicated that HC and NOx could, indeed, be contained within the engineering target LEV limits with only minor adjustments to calibration settings.

Contact: Tickford Engelhard, Andrew Smart. Tel: 248-926-8200 X16