A Diesel Combustion Kinetic Model For Estimating Gaseous Pollutant Emissions

In the last years, the presence of diesel engines vehicles in the European car fleet has reached all-time levels, being the sale of these cars quite above of the petrol-fuelled ones. The main reason of this fact is the higher efficiency of the diesel engines (that implies a lower CO2 emission), contributing to the development and optimization of such engines. However, the vehicle industry faces up to stringent legislative restrictions on pollutants emission, being the nitrogen oxides (NOx) and the particulate matter (PM) the main regulated diesel emissions. This fact has promoted the development of emissions reduction techniques that affect, not only the combustion process, but also the pollutant emissions once they have formed, that is, acting in the exhaust system. Nevertheless, is necessary to develop theoretical models that allow improving the understanding of the physical and chemical complex phenomena causing the pollutants formation, making possible the establishment of cause-effect relationships between the engine operating conditions and the pollutant emissions level.