ArvinMeritor's Latest Vehicle Emissions Technologies Could Accelerate the Road to Fuel Cells

DEARBORN, Mich., Sept. 28 -- ArvinMeritor, Inc. has developed technology that could bridge the gap between today's internal combustion engines and the promising future of fuel cells, accelerating by many years immense benefits in fuel economy, according to Pedro Ferro, ArvinMeritor vice president and general manager, Commercial Vehicle Systems. Ferro made his comments today as a panel participant of the Global Powertrain Conference in Dearborn.

ArvinMeritor's new Plasma Fuel Reformer was initially designed as a regenerator for cleaning oxides of nitrogen (NOx) traps found in commercial vehicle diesel emissions systems. However, because the Plasma Fuel Reformer is so efficient at self-generating onboard hydrogen, the technology can also be developed as a bridge technology to fuel cells, as a significant, alternate fuel source for internal combustion engines (ICE).

"Gasoline engine combustion can be enhanced to significantly reduce fuel consumption and exhaust emissions, without sacrificing engine performance," Ferro said. "A combination of the increasingly popular hybrids with Hydrogen Enhanced Combustion Engine (HECE) technology can significantly help approach the fuel efficiency levels of fuel cells sooner.

"In researching and developing vast improvements in emissions technology, ArvinMeritor and its research partners found that reliable, on-demand, onboard hydrogen generation is not only a key enabler to enhance engine combustion and improve emissions aftertreatment, but it can also help transition the industry to the hydrogen economy."

ArvinMeritor and its OEM customers are continually seeking solutions for the impact both increased engine emissions standards and the ongoing call for improved fuel economy have on commercial and light vehicle markets. For example, U.S. standards for the commercial vehicle industry call for the reduction of particulate matter (PM) and NOx emissions from diesel-powered vehicles by 90 percent or more from current levels, in stages between 2007 and 2010. Similarly strict European standards take affect in 2005 and 2008.

"The United States, Europe and other countries have unprecedented levels of emissions standards closing in quickly -- challenges on which ArvinMeritor has long been hard at work to exceed by developing new innovations through our core competencies in emissions system design, manufacturing and integration," Ferro said. "But not only have we been able to develop better emissions aftertreatment technology. Through the process ArvinMeritor has also discovered capabilities that will help transition the transportation industry to new fuel economies with onboard hydrogen generation by way of the Plasma Fuel Reformer."

ArvinMeritor has a full suite of emissions technologies like the Plasma Fuel Reformer that currently are -- or soon will be -- available to OEMs worldwide in both commercial and light vehicle segments. The company's proven competencies of thermal management and exhaust system design, packaging and durability are a common thread connecting all of ArvinMeritor's Clean Air Solutions. Aimed at heavy truck, light truck and passenger car applications in North America, Europe and Asia, the technologies under development include effective applications to meet upcoming near-term diesel exhaust emission regulations. The technologies also include innovative solutions for the increasingly stringent standards mandated for the future.

The Plasma Fuel Reformer technology is being developed in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Purdue University. The partnership with Purdue is funded through a $1.7 million grant from the Indiana 21st Century Research and Development Fund. The grant will assist in the development of the company's breakthrough Plasma Fuel Reformer exhaust emissions technology, which is being developed at ArvinMeritor's Columbus, Ind., Emissions Technical Center. The company's key role is to develop the technology in such a way that it is small, lightweight and engineered to be affordably mass produced for the automotive and commercial vehicle markets.

Applied to emissions systems, the Plasma Fuel Reformer is used to enable NOx traps, which have active coatings within the trap to adsorb NOx (a main contributor to "smog") and prevent it from passing into the atmosphere. To maintain its efficiency, however, the trap must be regenerated regularly by introducing hydrocarbons or hydrogen to the trap's active reagents. In conventional NOx traps, diesel fuel is introduced as the hydrocarbon source, but this approach has considerable disadvantages. Those disadvantages include the difficulty of successful regeneration at low temperatures, a significant diesel fuel consumption penalty and the possibility of unburned diesel fuel passing through to the atmosphere, a phenomenon called diesel "slip."

With ArvinMeritor's Plasma Fuel Reformer, a hydrogen-rich gas is generated onboard and on-demand, using the vehicle's diesel fuel as a source, and supplied directly to the NOx trap, as required. According to laboratory and field tests, the hydrogen-rich gas has proven to be an outstandingly efficient regenerator of the trap.