ON-BOARD DIMTHYL ETHER GENERATION TO REDUCE METHANOL FUELEDVEHICLE EMISSIONS DURING COLD OPERATION

THE USE OF METHANOL AS A LOW EMISSIONS, ALTERNATE FUEL TO GASOLINE AND DIESEL FUEL MAY BE LIMITED BY DIFFICULT COLD STARTING AND HIGH CO AND UNBURNED HYDROCARBONS DURING COLD OPERATION OF METHANOL-FUELED ENGINES. A FUELED VEHICLE TO PRODUCE DIMETHYL ETHER AND TO METER THE HIGHLY VOLATILE DIMETHYL ETHER INTO THE ENGINE TO ASSIST THE COLD STARTING AND COLD OPERATION. EXPERIMENTS WILL BE DONE TO MEASURE THEEFFICIENCY OF PROPOSED METHANOL DEHYDRATION CATALYSTS. DATA GENERATED FROM THESE EXPERIMENTS WILL BE USED TO DESIGNAN ON-BOARD METHANOL DEHYDRATION SYSTEM.