Abstract:
This research focuses on the continuous development of the Active Vapor Recovery System (AVUS) which has the potential to reduce unburned hydrocarbon emissions from automobiles. The AVUS collects, condenses and stores hydrocarbon vapors from the fuel tank and saves them in a pressurized storage tank for later use as a cold starting fuel. This highly volatile starting fuel has the capability to reduce tailpipe emissions that occur during cold starts, as well as evaporative emissions that occur while the vehicle is at rest. Instead of commercial gasoline, the bench top AVUS was run using a five component fuel composed of 25% iso-pentane, 17.5% hexane, 17.5% heptanes, 17.5% toluene, and 22.5% isooctane; as well as an E85 mixture composed of 15% five component fuel and 85% ethanol. The condensate produced from AVUS was then analyzed using simple gas chromatograph techniques and found to have as much as 75% iso-pentane. Such a mixture would be an excellent starting fuel. Successive tests on the same batch of fuel proved that AVUS can produce this starting fuel without depleting the parent fuel of the species needed for non-AVUS starts. Index of refraction and infrared tests were also used in an attempt to establish reliable correlations between the condensate composition, refractive index, and infrared absorption that could be used for onboard analysis of the starting fuel. However, index of refraction results were found to be inconclusive while infrared testing proved to have great potential for determining alcohol concentration.
