Dramatically reducing emissions

Clean Diesel Technologies has announced today that the results of a new test of its new diesel fuel additive show reductions in toxic diesel emissions that easily comply with or are lower than the most stringent US clean air standards.

The results of the test, performed in conjunction with San Antonio, TX-based Southwest Research Institute, will be presented at the SAE World Congress in Detroit on March 7th.

CDT has taken the additive, which is a proprietary catalyst called Platinum Plus, and created a newly-formulated diesel fuel it calls Cleaner Burning Diesel. The test resultsshow that using Cleaner Burning Diesel instead of standard highway diesel fuel reduces particulate matter (PM) by 33 percent, and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by 10 percent.

The company has demonstrated lower emissions of NOx and PM than the ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel (50ppm sulfur) especially formulated for use in California.

Similar results were also found using the CDT technology in other diesel fuel formulas including the current No. 2 diesel fuel, California's ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel (ULSD), which was designed to reduce emissions to comply with the state's strict clean air standards and bio-diesel blends of these fuels.

The test results showed that if the new additive is used with the California fuel and particulate filters made by Corning, 3M, Engelhard or Clean Air Systems, the emissions achieve the 0.01g/bhp-hr particulate emission limit established by the California Air Resources Board last September.

That regulation has targeted more than 1 million engines for particulate reduction in the next eight years. Data will also confirm that reductions of 80 percent can be achieved even on current sulfur fuels.

In addition, when CDT's Cleaner Burning Diesel Fuel is used in conjunction with timing changes in a truck engine a standard diesel oxidation catalyst, the emissions are reduced even further: 75 percent PM reductions are achieved as well as a 35 percent reduction of NOx.

Because of the potential for these significant reductions, the city of Houston is currently planning to test CDT's Cleaner Burning Diesel Fuel in eight of its vehicles as part of the city's effort to find cost-effective fuel emission reduction strategies.

The cost of the additive is in the range of 5-10 cents/gallon, which makes it competitive with the more costly ULSD that also requires special storage, handling and transport from refineries. In addition, the additive offers fuel economy improvements because it burns fuel more completely in the engine, which also reduces its cost.

The additive can be added to fuel supplies at any point in the distribution channel, from the refinery to vehicle saddle tanks. It is distributed in the US and overseas by CDT, which is currently expanding its network of licensed fuel marketers and additive distributors.