Impact of Ethanol and Aromatic Hydrocarbons on Particulate Emissions from a Gasoline Vehicle

Toni Tahtouh; Arij Ben Amara; Patricia Anselmi; Laurie Starck

doi:10.4271/2019-24-0160

The impact of transport on global and local pollution has resulted in stricter emission limits. More specifically, increasing attention is being paid to exhaust gas particulate emissions in spark ignition engines. The particulate formation is mainly affected by: 1-engine and fuel system characteristics, 2-fuel properties and 3-exhaust aftertreatment system. In order to estimate the influence of fuel characteristics on particulate emissions, several research works have proposed fuel indices that correlate some of the fuel physical and chemical properties with engine particulate emissions.

This work investigates the impact of fuel composition on particulate emissions and evaluates the Honda Particulate Matter Index (PMI) proposed by Aikawa et al. and other fuel indices in terms of agreement with vehicle test bed results for a passenger car.

Vehicle tests were performed on New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) and Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Cycle (WLTC) by using an E10 Euro VI reference fuel and five different fuel blends with 10% to 20% of ethanol and 23% to 35% of aromatic hydrocarbons content by volume. The effect of aromatic hydrocarbons composition on particulate emissions is also investigated by considering the same amount of global aromatic hydrocarbons but different aromatic composition: heavy aromatic hydrocarbons (C11)- and light aromatic hydrocarbons (C7-C9).

Results illustrate a good correlation between particulate emissions and aromatic hydrocarbons content but little or no sensitivity of particulate emissions to ethanol content in the fuels. The comparison of the fuel particulate indices and vehicle results revealed different sensitivities but good overall agreement. It was also found that particulate emissions present a high sensitivity to heavy aromatic hydrocarbons content.

These results highlight the importance of fuel quality and more specifically the role of heavy aromatic hydrocarbons on particulate emissions.

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Impact of Ethanol and Aromatic Hydrocarbons on Particulate Emissions from a Gasoline Vehicle 2019-24-0160

SAE MOBILUS