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A 5.9 liter medium-heavy-duty diesel engine, meeting the emissions performance of a MY 2000 US heavy-duty on-highway engine, was tested with and without a diesel exhaust emission control system consisting of catalyzed diesel particulate filters and adsorber catalysts NOx arranged in a four-flow path configuration. This four-flow path system represents a significant reduction in catalyst volume when compared to previous systems tested by EPA. The goal of this project was to achieve high NOx reduction over the Heavy-Duty Diesel Engine Federal Test Procedure (HDDE-FTP) and Supplemental Emission Test (SET), consistent with the 2007 U.S. heavy-duty engine emissions standards, using this reduced volume system. Supply of hydrocarbon reductant for NOx adsorber regeneration was accomplished via a secondary exhaust fuel injection system.

Beginning June 1, 2006, 80% of the highway diesel fuel produced in the United States had to contain 15 ppm sulfur or less. To account for sulfur test method variability, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) allowed a 2 ppm compliance margin, meaning that in an EPA enforcement action fuel measuring 17 ppm or less would still be deemed compliant since the true sulfur level could still be 15 ppm. Concern was voiced over the appropriateness of the 2 ppm compliance margin, citing recent American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) round-robin and crosscheck test program results that showed sulfur test lab-to-lab variability (reproducibility) on the order of 4 to 5 ppm depending on test method.

With input from industry, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has developed ramped modal versions of its steady-state certification duty cycles for land-based nonroad diesel engines. The Ramped Modal Cycle (RMC) calls for gathering gaseous and particulate emissions continuously over the cycle, while the steady-state test specifies that samples be taken for only a portion of the time at each mode. The RMC test was developed in part to capture discrete regeneration events associated with advanced catalyst systems like NOx adsorbers that are anticipated to meet future nonroad emission standards.1 To compare the emission levels between these two tests, a 5.9 liter medium-heavy-duty on-highway diesel engine rated for 260 hp @ 2500 rpm, was run at EPA's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory (NVFEL), derated to 180 hp @ 2500 rpm, to simulate the configuration of a typical nonroad engine.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted the Low Emission Vehicle (LEV) III regulations in January 2012, which lowered the particulate matter (PM) emissions standards for light-duty vehicles (LDVs) from 10 milligrams per mile (10 mg/mile) to 3 mg/mile beginning with model year (MY) 2017 and 1 mg/mile beginning with MY 2025. To confirm the ability to measure PM emissions below 1 mg/mile, a total of 23 LDVs (MY pre-2004 to 2009) were tested at CARB's Haagen-Smit Laboratory (HSL) (10 LDVs) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (US EPA) National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory (NVEFL) (13 LDVs) using the federal test procedure (FTP) drive schedule. One LDV with PM emissions ranging from 0.6 - 0.8 mg/mile was tested at three CARB HSL test cells to investigate intra-lab and inter-lab variability. Reference, trip, and tunnel filter blanks were collected as part of routine quality control (QC) procedures.