Catalyzed soot filters are being fitted to an increasing range of diesel-powered passenger cars in Europe. While the initial applications used silicon carbide wallflow filters, oxide-based filters are now being successfully applied. Oxide-based filters can offer performance and system cost advantages for applications involving both a catalyzed filter with a separate oxidation catalyst, and a catalyzed filter-only that incorporates all necessary catalytic oxidation functions. Advanced diesel catalyst technologies have been developed for alternative advanced oxide filter materials, including aluminum titanate and advanced cordierite. In the development of the advanced catalyzed filters, improvements were made to the filter material microstructures that were coupled with new catalyst formulations and novel coating processes that had synergistic effects to give enhanced overall performance. This paper discusses relevant system performance criteria including pressure-drop, emissions, thermalmechanical influences and the overall system durability in tests under certain controlled test conditions.

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The kinetics of NOX storage on a lean NOX trap (LNT) were studied using NOX breakthrough curves measured with a laboratory reactor. A much wider range of temperatures (125–450°C) was used than in most studies to facilitate discrimination between potential models. The breakthrough curves were run until the LNT was saturated to (i) enable NO oxidation to NO2 to be studied in the absence of NOX storage, (ii) to enable the effective NOX capacity as a function of temperature to be determined, and (iii) to provide a more demanding test for potential models. Breakthrough curves for 125 and 450°C were very similar, while curves at intermediate temperatures initially followed that for 125°C before breaking away from this curve at a point that became earlier with increasing temperature. Thus, the breakthrough curves have a temperature independent initial portion, followed by a temperature dependant portion. This was explained by there being two types of site: fast sites and slow sites. Fast sites are responsible for the initial part of the curve; both the rate of storage on these sites and the available capacity are independent of temperature. The rate of storage on slow sites, on the other hand, is temperature dependant, as is the available storage capacity. Slow sites are more abundant than fast sites. The performance of three NOX storage models for these sites was compared. The amount of NOX stored as a function of temperature was bell‐shaped. The models naturally predicted that storage was limited by kinetics at lower temperatures and nitrate stability at higher temperatures.