Cold-start emission reduction of the gasoline-powered vehicle utilizing a novel method

Most vehicle tailpipe emissions are related to the cold-start condition. In the present study, a novel methodology is introduced to trap the cold-start emissions. A numerical model is used to investigate the method implementation on the vehicle's cold-start emissions. Model is validated with the experimental data. Three different driving cycles are simulated to understand the effects of the employed method. The results show that the light-off temperature is independent of the driving cycle, while the light-off time is highly dependent on the driving behavior. The presented concept is more effective for traffic conditions and the low required powers of the vehicle. The most emission reduction is related to the emissions with moderate increment after catalyst light off. Therefore, the most considerable reduction is related to the NOx emission in all driving conditions, while method implementation is not beneficial for CO reduction compared to NOx. The emission reduction varies from 20% (WLTC) to 35% (NEDC) for CO emission, from 25% (WLTC) to 34% (NEDC and FTP75) for HC emission and 41% (FTP75) to 51% (NEDC) for NOX emission. This idea would help gasoline-powered vehicles to pass more strict emissions such as Euro7 in the coming future.