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Ultrafine particles, in particular solid sub-100 nm particles pose high risks to human health due to their high lung deposition efficiency, translocation to all organs including the brain and their harmful chemical composition; due to dense traffic, the population in urban environments is exposed to high concentrations of those toxic air contaminants, despite these facts, they are still widely neglected. Therefore, the EU-Commission set up a program for clean and competitive solutions for different problem areas which are regarded to be hotspots of such particles. HORIZON AeroSolfd is an EU project, co-funded by Switzerland that will deliver affordable, adaptable, and sustainable retrofit solutions to reduce exhaust tailpipe emissions from petrol engines, brake emissions and pollution in semi-closed environments.

Butanol, a four-carbon alcohol, is considered in the last years as an interesting alternative fuel, both for Diesel and for gasoline application. Its advantages for engine operation are: good miscibility with gasoline and diesel fuels, higher calorific value than ethanol, lower hygroscopicity, lower corrosivity and possibility of replacing aviation fuels. Like ethanol, butanol can be produced as a biomass-based renewable fuel or from fossil sources. In the research project, DiBut (Diesel and butanol) addition of butanol to Diesel fuel was investigated from the points of view of engine combustion and of influences on exhaust aftertreatment systems and emissions. One investigated engine (E1) was with emission class “EU Stage 3A” for construction machines, another one, engine (E2) was HD Euro VI. The most important findings are: with higher butanol content, there is a lower heat value of the fuel and there is lower torque at full load.

During the first decade of diesel particle filter development and deployment in cars, trucks, buses and underground sites, DPF regeneration methods were engineered that were compatible with the then prevalent high sulfur content in the fuel ≻ 2000 ppm. The mainly used methods were burners, electrical heaters, replaceable filters and non-precious metal fuel additives. Low sulfur diesel fuel became only available from 1996 in Sweden, 1998 in Switzerland, and after 2000 everywhere in Europe. Thus, the deployment of precious metal catalytic converters was feasible both as original equipment and retrofitting of in-use engines. The so-called CRT particle filters using PGM-catalysis for providing NO₂ for low temperature regeneration became very successful wherever ULSD was available.