75-5 RBM
Emissions from a Gould Catalyst Vehicle
with 25,000 Accumulated Miles
July 1974
Technology Assessment and Evaluation Branch
Emission Control Technology Division
Office of Mobile Source Air Pollution Control
Environmental Protection Agency
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Background
The Gould Corporation requested confirmatory testing of
a Datsun 610 equipped with their catalyst system which had
accumulated 40,000 kilometers of durability (25,000 miles).
As part of a continuing program for the evaluation of new
technological developments in emission control, the Emission
Control Technology Division agreed, to test the vehicle.
Arrangements were made with Mr. Dick Henry of Gould, to
test the vehicle during the week of May 20, 1974.
The Environmental Protection Agency receives information
about many devices for which emission reduction or fuel
economy improvement claims are made. In some cases, both
claims are made for a single device. In most cases, these
devices are being recommended or promoted for retrofit to
existing vehicles although some represent advanced systems
for meeting future standards.
The EPA is interested in evaluating the validity of
the claims for all such devices, because of the obvious bene-
fits to the Nation of identifying devices that live up to
their claims. For that reason the EPA invites proponents of
such devices to provide to the EPA complete technical data
on the device's principle of operation, together with test
data on the device made by independent laboratories. In
those cases in which review by EPA technical staff suggests
that the data submitted holds promise of confirming the
claims made for the device, confirmatory tests of the device
are scheduled at the EPA Emissions Laboratory at Ann Arbor,
Michigan. The results of all such confirmatory test pro-
jects are set forth in a series of Technology Assessment and
Evaluation Reports, of which this report is one.
The conclusions drawn from the EPA confirmatory tests
are necessarily of limited applicability. A complete evalu-
ation of the effectiveness of an emission control system in
achieving its claimed performance improvements on the many
different types of vehicles that are in actual use requires
a much larger sample of test vehicles than is economically
feasible in the confirmatory test projects conducted by
EPA.I/ For promising devices it is necessary that more
extensive test programs be carried out.
I/ See Federal Register 38 FR 11334, 3/27/74, for a descrip-
tion of the test protocols proposed for definitive evalua-
tions of the effectiveness of retrofit devices.
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The conclusions from the EPA confirmatory tests can be
considered to be quantitatively valid only for the specific
type of vehicle used in the EPA confirmatory test program.
Although it is reasonable to extrapolate the results from
the EPA confirmatory test to other types of vehicles in a
directional or qualitative manner, i.e., to suggest that
similar results are likely to be achieved on other types of
vehicles, tests of the device on such other vehicles would
be required to reliably quantify results on other types of
vehicles.
In summary, a device that lives up to its claims in
the EPA confirmatory test must be further tested according to
protocols described in footnote I/, to quantify its bene-
ficial effects on a broad range of vehicles. A device which
when tested by EPA does not meet the claimed results would
not appear to be a worthwhile candidate for such further
testing from the standpoint of the likelihood of ultimately
validating the claims made. However, a definitive quantita-
tive evaluation of its effectiveness on a broad range of
vehicle types would equally require further tests in accor-
dance with footnote I/.
System Description
The test vehicle was equipped with a new version of the
Gould catalyst system employing three, rather than the normal
two, beds. The first bed of the system is used for removing
oxygen from the exhaust gas before it passes through the
second bed which is the Gould metallic reduction catalyst.
After the reduction catalyst air is injected to create an
oxidizing atmosphere for the oxidation catalyst which is
the third bed. The use of the oxygen remover protects the
NOX catalyst from oxygen "spikes" which Gould feels were
responsible for durability problems with earlier NOx catalysts,
Gould indicated that there are several ways they have
been attempting to achieve the oxygen removal, but a
standard oxidation catalyst should be adequate.
No EGR was used on the test vehicle.
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Test Program
The vehicle equipped with the Gould catalyst system, and
used in the test program/ was a 1973 Datsun 610 with a 108 CID
4-cylinder engine and 4-speed transmission, tested at 2500#
inertia weight.
Three types of tests on the vehicles:
1. Three 1975 FTP tests.
2. Steady state modes of idle, 24.2 km/hr (15 mph),
48.4 km/hr (30 mph), 72.6 km/hr (45 mph), and
96.8 km/hr (60 mph).
3. Two Highway Driving Cycles to obtain fuel consump-
tion/economy at highway speeds.
Test Results
The test results are presented in the Appendix of this
report which include fuel consumption/economy calculations.
A summary of the average emission levels and fuel consump-
tion/economy for the Gould prototype is shown below compared
to the original 1976 standards and an unmodified vehicle
of the same type.
Summary of 1975 FTP Test Results (Average)
HC CO NOX Fuel Economy
. g/km (gpm) g/km (gpm) g/km (gpm) L/lOOkm (mpg)
Gould Datsun .61 (.98) 1.81 (2.93) .26 (.41) 10.9* (21.5)*
Original 1976
Standards .25 (.41) 2.1 (3.4) .25 (.4)
Standard 1973
Datsun 610** 1.05 (1.69) 12.2 (19.6) 1.09 (1.76) 12.3 (19.1)
* Indolene test fuel not used, these results based on fuel
C/H and density information supplied by Gould.
** Results adjusted for change in test procedure.
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Conclusions
Emissions from the Gould catalyst-equipped car in this
series of tests were not at the levels required by the original
1976 standards due to high HC levels which Gould personnel
reported were due to a rather high base engine emission level
of over 2 g/km. NOX levels were quite low, considering that
the vehicle utilized no EGR system, just exceeding the original
1976 requirement.
Fuel economy of the test car was about 13% better than
the comparable certification vehicle tested by EPA.
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APPENDIX
TABLE II
Evaluation of the Gould Catalyst Vehicle
Mass emissions in grams per kilometer
Fuel consumption in liters per one hundred kilometers
Metric Units
1
2
Fuel
1975 FTP
1
2
3
Steady
Idle
24.2
48.4
72.6
96.8
Highway
HC CO
.59 1.63
.63 2.24
.60 1.57
CO 2
281
252
271
NOX
.27
.26
.24
Consumption
11.4
10.5
10.8
State Modes
km/hr
km/hr
km/hr
km/hr
Driving
.06** *
.14 *
.12 *
.15 *
.16 *
Cycle
61**
341
196
156
177
.01**
.10
.12
.28
.27
1.55 1.
10.9
7.9
6.3
7.1
7.2
6.8
* Too low to accurately measure
** grams/minute
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TABLE II
Evaluation of the Gould Catalyst Vehicle
Mass emissions in grams per mile
Fuel economy in miles per gallon
English Units---—
1
2
Fuel
1975 FTP
1
2
3
HC CO
.95 2.63
1.02 3.62
.97 2.54
C02
454
407
437
NOX
.43
.42
.38
Economy (mile/
20.6
22.3
21.7
Steady State Modes
Idle
15 mi/hr
30 mi/hr
45 mi/hr
60 mi/hr
Highway Driving
.06** *
.22 *
.19 *
.24 *
.26 *
Cycle
61**
550
316
252
286
.01**
.17
.20
.46
.43
.41 gal/hr
21.5
29.9
37.4
33.1
32.8
34.5
* Too low to accurately measure
** grams/minute
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