Nissan develops SULEV-standard clean diesel technology
 

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd yesterday announced that a new clean diesel technology using high-performance catalysts shows great promise and may be able to meet the State of California's standard for super-ultra-low emission vehicles (SULEVs), equivalent to the U.S. federal Tier2Bin2 emissions requirements. Nissan plans to do further R&D of the technology.

Three components work together in Nissan's new technology to reduce diesel emissions: modulated-kinetic (MK) combustion, high-performance catalysts, and advanced engine control systems.

Nissan's HC-NOx trap catalyst technology features a breakthrough construction which incorporates a HC-trap layer in the NOx-trap catalyst. The HC-trap layer serves to trap the HC which is oxidized to generate hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO), which in turn react with the NOx gases trapped by the NOx-trap layer to produce nitrogen (N2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) gases, in addition to water vapour (H2O) as end products. The chemical reactions effectively reduce HC and NOx resulting in cleaner tail-pipe emissions.

The company had previously announced clean diesel technology that met the U.S. Tier2Bin5 emissions standards. With this new HC-NOx trap catalyst technology, Nissan believes it will be able to achieve cleaner diesel emissions in future vehicles that will meet the more stringent SULEV-standards set by the state of California. In order to meet the SULEV-standards, hydrocarbons in vehicle emissions must be exhaust reduced by about 90% and NOx levels must be reduced by 70% versus Tier2Bin5 standards.

Source: [url=http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/news/07-08-07_4]Auto Industry[/url]