Mitigating nitrogen oxides exhaust emissions from petrol vehicles by application of a fuel additive

Abstract

This research has been commissioned by Eco Fuel Global Limited, a New Zealand-based company, to further evaluate the effects of their fuel-additive product on the tail-pipe exhaust emissions of petrol cars. At the time this research was conducted (end of 2018), the product was still in development and had not been released to the market. Prior to the testing in this research, an initial pilot test was done for the same product on a single car (Nissan Pulsar 1998), which showed favourable results, with a reduction in hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen at the tail pipe by more than 70%.

The current research included five test cars, all running on RON 95 fuel, with the years of manufacture ranging between 1994 and 2006, and the odometer readings between 112,004 km and 264,001 km. The effects of the fuel-additive product were assessed by comparing the emissions from a car running on standard fuel with the emissions from the same car after it completed a road run (250±20 km) on the additive-treated fuel.

The exhaust emissions were measured using the AVL series 4000 Emission Tester, which analyses five components: carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOX), hydrocarbons (HC) and oxygen (O2).

The most noticeable outcome of using the fuel-additive product was the reduction in the concentration of oxides of nitrogen in the tailpipe exhaust (by up to 27.7%), when compared with the same cars running on standard fuel. In addition, the results showed a decrease in residual oxygen concentration, which normally indicates more complete utilisation of O2 as an oxidising agent.

The changes for other emission parameters were either relatively small (below 1%) or were not statistically significant.

The application of such fuel-additive products could be beneficial for mitigating nitrogen oxides exhaust emissions from petrol vehicles in countries with ageing car fleets. These include New Zealand, which has a relatively high proportion of old cars in use, with no government-run scrappage scheme, and without a mandatory objective emissions testing.