While it is true that in recent years there has been an increase in demand and sales of vehicles with alternative propulsions , it is also true that even today most of the cars on our roads continue to be powered by an internal combustion engine , either diesel or gasoline.
The transformation towards sustainable and efficient mobility is taking place, but the road is full of stones that make it difficult, such as insufficient autonomy, high cost, consumer confidence or lack of infrastructure. For this reason, while these issues are being solved, researchers, manufacturers and companies are working incessantly on the development of new technologies to obtain greener combustion engines.
Reactions that pollute
The first thing we must be clear about is the reason why cars pollute . We have to know that internal combustion engines are small chemical plants that, when burning, transform the energy of a fuel into kinetic energy. This fact of transforming some chemical substances into others generates the movement that allows the vehicle to move. However, in order to extract energy from fuel, it has to be burned, generating heat and chemicals, much of which is wasted in polluting emissions.
Efforts to obtain cleaner engines are mainly focused on improving the performance of the engine’s ignition system, which is a key component in gasoline-powered vehicles. Its correct operation is essential to ensure the reliability of the engine and, consequently, of the vehicle in general, and directly influences its emissions. These new ignition systems could contribute to increasingly efficient engines.
Other technologies
The catalyst also helps . It is a device that encourages chemical reactions to occur. Today, in addition to the catalyst that transforms the possible CO molecules produced in combustion into CO2, another is needed that transforms NOx into N2 and O2, totally harmless. Diesel, on the other hand, must have an anti-particulate filter, which is located along the exhaust pipe and which is responsible for retaining and eliminating the solid particles that are produced in the combustion of this type of engines, in addition to reducing benzopyrene emissions.
Other technologies in use today are NOx traps . When the catalyst responsible for neutralizing NOx does not get to do all the work on time, a NOx trap is installed, which stores it when the engine is overproducing this gas to transform it later, when the driver steps on the accelerator.
Finally, we cannot forget to talk about AdBlue , which is defined as a gas cleaning system made using a urea solution, and which is used to reduce NOx emissions caused by diesel engine exhaust through a process called Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR), with the aim of protecting the environment from such emissions.
