Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Precision Combustion, Inc.

Hitoshi Mikami

Yuji Yasui

Jun Iwamoto

Go Motohashi

Shinya Ishimaru

Dennis E Walsh

Subir Roychoudhury

Richard Mastanduno

Masakazu Kitamoto

Katsuji Wada

David Lang Spence

Eric Walker

Shigeki Muroga

Masaru Oku

Gaku Hatano

An exhaust purification device for an internal combustion engine is provided that can promote the reduction of NOx in a NOx purification catalyst from immediately after startup of the internal combustion engine. The exhaust purification device includes: a fuel reformer that is provided separately from exhaust plumbing, reforms fuel and produces a reducing gas that contains carbon monoxide, hydrogen and hydrocarbons, and supplies the reducing gas upstream of the NOx purification catalyst into the exhaust path; an exhaust gas temperature sensorthat detects a temperature Tof the exhaust flowing in the exhaust plumbing; and a reformer control partthat starts supply of the reducing gas to the exhaust plumbingby starting control of the fuel reformerin a case where the temperature Tthus detected by this exhaust gas temperature sensoris no higher than a predetermined first determination temperature T, and stops the supply of reducing gas to the exhaust plumbingby stopping control of the fuel reformerin a case where the temperature detected by the exhaust gas temperature sensoris at least a second determination temperature T, which is higher than the first determination temperature.

Exhaust purification device for internal combustion engine

Provided is a fuel reforming device, which can produce and supply a reformed gas in quick response to a demand for the reformed gas and which is so inexpensive as can be suitably mounted on a vehicle. The fuel reforming device feeds a material to a reforming catalyst and produces the reformed gas under a pressure higher than the atmospheric pressure. The fuel reforming device comprises a material supply means for supplying the material to the reforming catalyst, a reforming means having the reforming catalyst, for reforming the material supplied from the material supply means, to produce the reformed gas, and a run control means for controlling the run of the fuel reforming device. The run control means includes a stop mode, in which the drive of the material supply means is stopped to stop the production of the reformed gas, a reform mode, in which the material supply means is driven to produce the reformed gas, and a standby mode, in which the material supply means is driven and in which the temperature of the reforming catalyst is held within a predetermined range while producing the reformed gas as little as possible, so that the standby mode can shift instantly to the reform mode.

Fuel reforming device

An apparatus for fuel reforming is provided that utilizes pulsed injectors for a fuel flow controller and an air flow controller, and the injectors are integrated with an atomizing mixer thereby producing a fuel-air mixture having an O/C Ratio which, in turn, is passed to a Catalytic Partial Oxidation reactor. Use of this apparatus permits beneficial long term operation of this Catalytic Partial Oxidation reactor.

Reactor flow control apparatus

Provided is an exhaust gas cleaner by which nitrogen oxides contained in an exhaust gas can be efficiently removed in a wide temperature range from a low temperature. The exhaust gas cleaner () is for use in purifying the exhaust gas discharged from an internal combustion engine () in which fuel is fed under periodical rich or lean conditions and burned. The cleaner () comprises: a reforming means () which generates a reforming gas comprising hydrogen and carbon monoxide; a means of low-temperature oxidation () which contains palladium and which thereby can oxidize and adsorb nitrogen oxides at low temperatures and oxidize the hydrogen and carbon monoxide; and a purifying means () which under lean conditions adsorbs nitrogen oxides and which under rich conditions releases the adsorbed nitrogen oxides and removes the released nitrogen oxides with the hydrogen and carbon monoxide present in the channel. By contriving the layout of the reforming means (), means of low-temperature oxidation (), and purifying means (), nitrogen oxides contained in an exhaust gas can be removed in a wide temperature range from a low temperature.

Exhaust gas cleaner

A system for processing fuel vapor includes a fuel tank having a pressure gauge, a gas separation membrane module having a gas separation membrane for separating fuel vapor into condensed fuel vapor and fuel lean vapor, a fuel-vapor dissolution device for introducing condensed fuel vapor discharged into the fuel tank and dissolving this condensed fuel vapor in fuel, a canister having an adsorption part adsorbing fuel vapor in fuel lean vapor and a desorption device desorbing fuel vapor from the adsorption part, and an ECU programmed to, when the internal pressure of the fuel tank detected by the pressure gauge is at least a predetermined value, drive the pump to actuate the system so as to process fuel vapor. An objective of the present invention is to provide a fuel-vapor processing system that can process fuel vapor even during periods when the engine is stopped and does not require separation of fuel vapor at multiple stages, complicated control of the flow rate of fuel vapor and the flow rate of permeated gas, or liquefaction of fuel vapor.

Fuel-vapor processing system

Growing community of inventors

Saitama, Japan

Hitoshi Mikami