A Synthetic Ash-Loading Method for Gasoline Particulate Filters with Active Oil Injection

To reduce particulate emissions, the use of particulate filters in diesel engines is meanwhile state of the art, while the integration of such systems in gasoline engines is now also necessary in order to comply with today’s regulations. Over its lifetime, a gasoline particulate filter (GPF) collects ash components of fuel, lubrication oil, and materials originating from the catalytic coating and from engine abrasion. In the development and application process, synthetic ashing from GPFs is challenging. The ash of the lubrication oil can be increased in various ways, like oil-doped fuel, a separate oil burner, or changes in the piston-cylinder system of the engine. However, these methods show major disadvantages. For this reason, an improved approach is presented in this study, which allows a quick response to changes in combustion (e.g., engine knocking) and producing ash, which is more realistic due to its primary particle size and the density of ash plugs, in a shorter time. Therefore, an approach to accelerate ash loading by active oil injection using a multi-point injection (MPI) system is introduced. With the help of this methodology, an ashing capacity of 1.21 g/h is implemented, which is a high rate compared to other investigations. The primary particle size (evaluated by means of a transmission electron microscope), is in the same size range as those detected at the full-load curve during regular operation. A computer tomographic (CT) analysis of the incinerated particulate filter also shows that a very high density of ash plugs can be realized, which has also been found in the literature for real applications. In addition, with the help of a mass spectrometer (MS) and an intermediate weighing of the particulate filter, the current ash loading of the GPF could be determined with an accuracy of 1%.