Measurement of Regulated and Unregulated Exhaust Emissions from Snowmobiles in the 2009 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge

Scott A. Miers; Christopher Green; Jay Meldrum; Matt Chmielewski

doi:10.4271/2010-32-0126

Alternative and renewable fuels show tremendous promise for addressing concerns of energy security, energy supply, and CO₂ emissions. However, the new fuels have the potential to produce non-regulated exhaust components that may be as detrimental or worse, than currently regulated emissions components. For the 2009 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge (CSC), a commercially available Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometer was used to sample raw exhaust from eight student teams' snowmobiles for comparative analysis with a conventional emissions bench. The levels of CO₂, CO, NO

, O₂, and THC were compared for the five operating modes, which included both gasoline- and diesel-powered snowmobiles. The fuel was either an ethanol blend for spark-ignition engines or a biodiesel for compression-ignition engines. Final emissions result scores varied by less than 2% between the conventional emissions bench and the FTIR. In addition, due to the ability of the FTIR to measure non-regulated exhaust species, significantly increased levels of formaldehyde and ammonia were detected for some of the engine and exhaust configurations that displayed significant reductions in regulated emissions.

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Measurement of Regulated and Unregulated Exhaust Emissions from Snowmobiles in the 2009 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge 2010-32-0126

SAE MOBILUS