A Design to Improve Selective Catalytic
Reduction for Diesel Engines
Ilteris Demirkiran1 , Marc Compere2 , Ye Sun1 , Anuj Sharma1 , Amay Desai1 , and Kurt Pedrosa1
1
Electrical, Computer, Software, and System Engineering, 2 Mechanical Engineering
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, 600 South Clyde Morris Blvd.
Daytona Beach, FL 32114, USA.
Abstract—An approach to reduce harmful emis-
sions in diesel engines is presented. This approach
makes use of an improved Selective Catalytic Reduc-
tion (SCR) system which employs a Diesel Oxidation
Catalyst (DOC). In addition, a communication link
between the engine and a data collection system is
established using User Datagram Protocol (UDP).
We observed that the enhanced emissions control
system presented demonstrates significant reduction
in emission.
Keywords—Selective Catalytic Reduction, Diesel
Engines, NOX Emission, Diesel Oxidation Catalyst.
I. INTRODUCTION
The number of vehicles on roads has increased
tremendously over the past decade. While peo-
ple enjoy the convenience brought by vehicles,
it adversely affect the environment people rely
on to survive. In today’s atmosphere, more than
one third of the carbon monoxide and nitrogen
oxides come from vehicular emissions [1]. Con-
trolling air pollution has become an urgent global
problem. Living in a polluted environment causes
people to suffer from respiratory diseases and other
health complications. In addition to poor health, the
uncontrolled emission exacerbates the greenhouse
effect. The US Congress enacted the Corporate
Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) in 1975 to regulate
the fuel-economy standards. Due to the new policy,
the average fuel economy for cars will be increased
from 27.5 mpg (mile per gallon) to 37.8 mpg by
2016 [2]. Based on the fact that diesel engine
vehicles have a higher mpg and a better power
978-1-5090-2246-5/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
density [3], they will have a larger market share in
the future. Therefore, controlling the diesel emis-
sions from diesel engines has become increasingly
important. Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR)
systems have become a standard and a promising
technique for reducing Nitrous Oxide, referred to
as NOX , emissions from light to heavy duty diesel
engines [4], [5]. One of the major concerns of SCR
systems is its inability to control the amount of
Adblue (32.5% aqueous urea solution), also known
as Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF), being injected
into the exhaust. Pingen Chen and Junmin Wang
estimated the actual ammonia concentration input
and ammonia in exhaust emission, referred to as
ammonia slip, for low temperature operations [4].
These estimations were used to prevent ammonia
slip by varying the injection rate. Yue-Yun Wang,
Hui Zhang and Junmin Wang designed a fuzzy
logic control system to correct Adblue injector
flow rate [6]. They used a feedback control from
the exhaust sensors to the injector in order to
correct the Adblue injection rate. M. Karthikeyan,
K. Annamalai and V.N. Banugopan designed a flow
control system driven by engine rpm (rotations per
minute) and temperature. The flow control system
ensures a proper injection rate for different driving
scenarios [7]. A model based feed forward con-
troller is presented by Waseem A Rasheed, Parul
Goyal, and Cyril Joseph. The controller analyzes
the effects of slowly varying engine parameters
on engine NOX emissions [8]. Most SCR control
strategies regard Adblue injection rate as the sole
control input. Pingen Chen and Junmin Wang pre-
sented another control strategy that treats engine
exhaust emission of NOX as the virtual control to
improve fuel economy while reducing overall NOX
emissions [5]. Xu Zhai, Zhonglin Chen, Jie Yao
and He Wang conducted extensive research on the
influences of reaction temperature, NH3/NOX ratio
and space velocity on SCR performance to prepare
a new catalyst [9]. All of the research mentioned
above focused on preventing ammonia slip. In this
research effort, we developed an enhanced SCR
system that prevents both ammonia slip and also
provides better reduction in NOX emissions using
Diesel Oxidation Catalyst (DOC).
II. METHODOLOGY
NOX is a mixed gas including NO (Nitric
Oxide) and NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide). Not only does
NOX effects our health, but also damages the ozone
in the stratosphere. During the engine combustion
process, a large amount of NOX is produced.
The amount of NOX produced drastically increases
when engine is under higher loads. To prevent NOX
going into the air, SCR technology is implemented
to reduce NOX . Urea, which is converted to am-
monia by the heat of the exhaust [10], is taken into
reaction with the NOX to produce H2 O and N2 .
4N O + 4N H3 + O2 → 4N2 + 6H2 O (1)
2N O2 + 4N H3 + O2 → 3N2 + 6H2 O (2)
N O + N O2 + 2N H3 → 2N2 + 3H2 O (3)
As shown in the chemical equations above, am-
monia (NH3) converts the NOX into Nitrogen, N2,
and water vapor, H2O. As a result, the air pollution
due to NOX will decrease.
III. PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The main goal is to develop a control system
that is capable of reducing exhaust emissions.
This control system can be used for hybrid diesel
engines running at any rpm and temperature. A
diesel emission test stand was built to collect the
data from the engine exhaust. The data is to be
analyzed in order to estimate an appropriate DEF
injection rate. Ensuring correct implementation of
the system can result in up to 98% reduction
in NOX [11]. In order to break down pollutants
from the diesel engine in the exhaust stream we
integrated a DOC into the SCR system. The SCR
system is installed between an upstream sensor
which senses the engine NOX level before the am-
monia injection and the downstream sensor which
sense the tailpipe NOX level after the injection of
ammonia. One of the drawbacks of SCR systems
is that it does not have control over the injection
rate of DEF. We coped with this issue by means
of an adaptive control system. Having analyzed
the data received from the NOX sensors, the SCR
control system adjusts the injection rate. Receiving
the data from the sensors and transmitting the
injection rate information to the injector pump are
accomplished by using User Datagram Protocol
(UDP). The protocol establishes a communication
between the engine and a computer-aided data
collecting (CADC) system. For uninterrupted com-
munications a single dedicated data channel was
used.
IV. PROCESS
A Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) is the first
component to clean the polluted exhaust that is
emitted from a diesel engine. A complete SCR
system [11] is shown in Fig. 1.
Figure 1: Selective Catalytic Reduction System
Nowadays, a DPF has the ability to filter out
about 80% of the diesel particulate emissions [12].
However, NOX cannot be filtered by a DPF, so a
chemical reaction is needed as the second step. The
reaction takes place under a catalytic environment.
Ammonia is used as the reductant to consume
NOX . A tank is filled with Adblue. The pump con-
nected to the tank moves the DEF up to the SCR
pipe until it reaches the injector. The injector in-
troduces the right amount of DEF into the exhaust
pipe to react with NOX . In this chemical reaction,
catalyst and temperature are two important factors
to consider. A DOC was implemented into the
SCR system in order to enhance its performance.
It reduces engine emissions after a cold start [13]
and is used to breakdown harmful components
in the air by oxidizing several gas components
that are present in a diesel engine exhaust. The
level of harmful gasses like carbon monoxide,
hydrocarbons (HC), and soluble organic fraction of
diesel particulate (SOF) are reduced by the DOC.
These reductions can be seen from the following
chemical equations:
[HC] + O2 → CO2 + H2 O (4) Figure 2: Load bank to simulate the diesel engine
under different loads
m
Cn H2m + (n + )O2 → nCO2 + mH2 O (5) this project, an Arduino Uno R3 board and a Spark-
2
fun CAN (Controller Area Network) bus shield
1 were utilized to establish control of the system.
CO + O2 → CO2 (6)
2 Arduino with the CAN bus shield is shown in
Observe that that hydrocarbons, soluble organic Fig. 3.
fraction of particulate matter compounds and car-
bon monoxide are all converted into water and
carbon dioxide, which are components of our at-
mosphere. A DOC also increases the content of
NO2 by oxidizing NO in the exhaust gases;
1
N O + O2 → N O2 (7)
2
This increase of NO2 enhances the operation of
SCR system, and reduces the amount of ammonia
slip [14]. Thus, the addition of DOC not only
provides more reduction in the harmful emissions
but also improves SCR system performance.

V. ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Figure 3: Arduino Controller unit to receive and

A programmable load bank, shown in Fig. 2,
was designed to dissipate power from the diesel
engine-generator. The load bank is powered by a
120 volts supply. Under different driving scenarios,
the vehicle can emit different amount of NOX . To
inject the right amount of ammonia to react with
the NOX , it is important to perform relevant tests.
By connecting a load bank to the diesel generator,
various range of powers can be dissipated. Consid-
ering the actual usage of diesel vehicles, the load
bank was designed to dissipate power ranging from
240 watts to 6,000 watts. In
transmit sensor data
The main purpose of the microcontroller is to
implement a feedback control by receiving and
sending signals from and to the sensors and actu-
ators. The CAN bus shield has a Microchip MCP
2515 CAN controller with an MCP 2551 CAN
transceiver, which gives the Arduino the capability
to communicate via the CAN bus. The CAN bus is
an accepted standard for hardware communication
throughout the automobile industry. It allows mul-
tiple microcontrollers and devices to communicate
with each other on the same bus. A 120 ohms
resistor is used as a terminals to connect the high
and low CAN communication wires. The CAN
bus shield contains a standard DB-9 port which is
connected to the vehicle’s computer via its OBD-
II port in order to monitor the car’s information
in real-time. In addition to the CAN bus shield, an
Ethernet shield was added to establish communica-
tion between the Arduino and a remote computer,
called test stand manager, that collects the sensor
data. Ethernet shield provides the Arduino UDP
communication capability. UDP is an alternative
to Transmission control Protocol (TCP). UDP uses
Internet Protocol (IP) to get a data unit (datagram)
from one system to another. The objective of UDP
is to serve as an interface between networking
systems, allowing user programs to send/receive
datagram messages. UDP is best fit where speed is
more important, and data exchange is short [15],
[16]. Two GM NOX sensors, shown in Fig. 4, are
used to collect the NOX data values, detecting the
NOX ppm (parts per million) before and after the
chemical treatment.
Figure 4: Nitrogen Oxide Sensors
The downstream NOX sensor had a built-in 120
ohms resistor and was connected to one of the
CAN bus terminals. A second 120 ohms resistor
was need in order to complete the CAN network.
One output pin is used to communicate with the
two NOX sensors. Six messages are received from
the two NOX sensors. The CAN Bus message
identification information is used to distinguish
between messages from different sensors. A mes-
sage is then sent from the Arduino to the CAN
Bus which heats-up the NOX sensors in order to
initiate data communication. From our tests, we
could see that the upstream NOX reading was very
high, especially when the engine was under high
load. However, after the treatment, the downstream
NOX concentration went down dramatically, which
showed that most of the NOX had been consumed
by ammonia. Since this reaction was highly tem-
perature based, a temperature sensor was used to
collect the exhaust temperature. This temperature
sensor was voltage based and powered by a 5V
pin on the Arduino. The sensors were calibrated
with an industry partner GFS Corp’s state of the
art Testo 350. The measuring probe of the emission
analyzer was inserted into the exhaust to collect
the data which was later used to calibrate the NOX
sensors and temperature sensors. This was a key
point to prove that the test stand used for this
experiment was a valid model for a light duty diesel
engine. The tank was filled with Adblue. A pump
was mounted on the tank as shown in Fig. 5.
Figure 5: Diesel Exhaust Fluid Tank
Next to the pump, a solenoid valve was used
to control the flow direction of the DEF. Along
with the pump and the solenoid valve, a pressure
sensor is used to monitor the pressure in thepump,
and output real-time value through an analog
pin on the Arduino. When a 3 Hz pulse width
modulated (PWM) signal is sent to the pump, it
pumps DEF to the SCR tube. As soon as the DEF
reaches the injector, it is injected into the exhaust
pipe to react with NOX to produce N2 and H2 O.
A 100 Hz PWM signal to the injector makes the
pump functional. The duty cycle of the PWM
signals varies based on the NOX concentration
reported from the two NOX sensors and the
temperature value reported from the temperature
sensor. There are three heaters in the SCR system:
tank heater, pump heater and line heater. Since
the chemical reaction takes place at a fairly high
temperature environment, the three heaters are
used to preheat the DEF fluid. Six N-channel
MOSFETs connected to the six actuators: injector,
the pump, the solenoid valve, the tank heater, the
pump heater, and the line heater. Based on the
fact that the output current from the Arduino is
too low, one of the MOSFET’s major duties is
to amplify the current, especially for the high
current heaters. In addition, the MOSFET is also
used as a switch. For example, if a “LOW” signal
is transmitted from the Arduino to the gate of
the MOSFET, it would be regarded as an open
circuit. So this, in combination with all the other
hardware and software components, allows
the users to fully control each actuator, and
therefore, control the SCR System. We observed
from Fig. 6, there is a significant change between
the upstream and downstream NOX concentration
when DEF injection is provided. It was noticed
that whenever the injector provides DEF in
the exhaust, the amount of NOX goes down
considerably.
VI. CONCLUSION
We addressed the important issues of harmful
emissions from diesel engines. An approach to
reduce diesel engine emission is proposed. This
approach makes use of SCR system employing
DOC. The system is further enhanced by utilizing
the UDP protocol between the engine and the
data collection system. It is observed that our
approach significantly reduced emissions of oxides
of nitrogen and particulate matter from the exhaust
of diesel vehicles when the diesel exhaust fluid is
injected into the exhaust gas.
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