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The exhaust emissions of two stroke vehicles like motorbikes and scooters contribute to the pollution in urban areas of developing countries in South East Asia and India to a major extent. But also in Japan and selected European countries exhaust gas limitations become effective from 10/1998 and 06/1999 for these vehicles. To control this emissions catalytic aftertreatment by Hot Tubes® and/or monolith type catalysts are applied. Due to the constant rich operation of the two-stroke engines, common design criteria for three-way catalysts fail. Extremely high exhaust gas hydrocarbon concentrations lead to high exotherms during oxidation which increases the exhaust gas temperature to a range between 800 and 900 °C. Furthermore the lack of oxygen limits the CO and HC oxidation under certain engine operation conditions. Therefore, water-gas shift and steam reforming reactions play an important part in catalytic aftertreatment of two-stroke exhausts.

The awareness concerning environmental issues and the economical need for fuel savings leads to the introduction of new, highly efficient Diesel engines for passenger cars. An engine with common rail injection system could meet this target and, with the help of an advanced diesel exhaust aftertreatment system also fulfilled the new legislative emission regulations. Besides the efficient oxidation of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC) and diesel particulates, such a system also requires a moderate reduction efficiency for nitrogen oxides (NOx) under excess oxygen conditions. The present paper illustrates the further progress in catalytic NOx-reduction under excess of oxygen by hydrocarbon enrichment using the common rail injection system.

Catalyst applications for gasoline and diesel engine powered passenger cars and 2-stroke Two- and Three-wheelers are the main focus of this paper. Catalyst durability and deactivating effects are discussed in detail. Experiences on Indian conditions are also included.

Several diesel powered passenger car manufacturers in the European Union announced recently the future use of catalysed diesel particulate filter systems on their vehicles. The filtration of the exhaust gas is being worked on since several years. Different filter materials and filter designs proved their ability to achieve high filtration efficiencies over the lifetime of the vehicle. The major technological challenge is the periodic regeneration of the filters loaded with the retained diesel particulates. In order to promote filter regeneration, catalytic activation of the accumulated soot is advantageous. Therefore, the first serial application of diesel particulate filter system (diesel oxidation catalyst combined with an uncoated filter substrate) uses catalytically active fuel additives. These systems have been introduced about four years ago and proved to be a viable technology to clean the exhaust gas of passenger car diesel engines.

This paper traces the evolution of heavy-duty truck transmissions in Europe, comments on the factors that have influenced and will influence the designs, compares some of the types in current use, and gives the author's views on possible lines of further development in the next decade. The ultimate predominance of any particular truck transmission will, of course, be the result of compromise between legislative, economic, and geographic factors. All these influences vary considerably in their effects on European truck manufacture as compared to that in the United States. The discussion of these differences points up areas of interest to manufacturers of transmissions who engage in export of their products.