Impacts of eFuels on Solid and Gaseous Emissions of Powersport Two-Wheelers 2023-01-1838

As alternative to electrification or carbon free fuels such as hydrogen, CO₂-neutral fuels have been researched aiming to decrease the impact of fossil energy sources on the environment. Despite the potential benefit of capturing CO₂ emission after combustion for own fuel production, the so-called eFuels also benefit by using a green source of energy during their fabrication. Among all the possibilities for eFuels, alcohols, ethers (such as MTBE and ETBE) and alternative hydrocarbons have shown positive impacts regarding emission reduction and performance when compared to standard gasoline. Previously in [1] and [2], synthetic fuels and methanol blends were tested at steady state conditions in order to verify advantages and drawbacks relative to gasoline, for power-sport motorcycles. However, for real-world operation, transient behavior must be investigated addressing critical topics such as emissions during engine / aftertreatment warm-up, catalyst light-off and its interaction with eFuels. Therefore, for assessing eFuels impacts on raw / tail-pipe emissions, as well on solid particulate emissions, WMTC measurements were performed whereas engine parameters were adapted to e-fuel operation. Further, targeting at an optimum operation with a selected eFuel, novel catalysts structures and coating strategies were tested aiming to reduce gaseous and solid tail-pipe emissions in the WMTC cycle.