Fuel effects on emissions from modern gasoline vehicles part 1 – sulphur effects

Report no. 5/03: The influence of gasoline quality on exhaust emissions has been evaluated using four modern European gasoline cars with advanced technologies designed to reduce fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions, including stoichiometric direct injection, lean-burn direct injection and variable valve actuation. This report (part 1) describes the short-term sensitivity of the four cars to gasoline sulphur content.

Part 2 of this report will describe the influence of other fuel effects (aromatics,olefins, volatility and FBP). All four cars achieved very low emissions levels, with some clear differences between the vehicle technologies. Even at these low emissions levels, all four cars showed very little sensitivity to gasoline sulphur content. The results were also compared with other studies that had suggested higher sensitivity at low emissions levels.

Overall it is concluded that low emissions can be achieved without significant short-term sensitivity to fuel sulphur and that sulphur sensitivity is principally influenced by catalyst system design rather than emissions level.