VOLVO TESTS NEW FUEL

Volvo Trucks and Volvo Buses have together developed a new engine running on the alternative fuel, DME or DiMethylEther. The new engine has been installed in a bus for further operational evaluation.

Transportation contributes to environmental problems through acidification, global warming and other processes. The environmental effects of transportation stem primarily from the emissions formed during fuel combustion. The most common fuel for heavy trucks and buses is diesel oil. One way of reducing this effect is to develop alternative fuels.
The most important criteria in the choice of alternative fuels are low environmental impact and high energy efficiency throughout the fuel's life cycle (production, distribution and use). The fuel should also be possible to obtain from non-fossil sources and should be competitive in terms of cost.

Why DME?
DME is an interesting alternative fuel from several viewpoints. DME has a simple chemical structure, CH3-O-CH3, becoming a gas at room temperature. DME's chemical properties help suppress emissions during combustion. Energy efficiency throughout the fuel chain ? from production of DME to use in the engine ? is high, one of the reasons being that the high-efficiency diesel technology can be utilised. At present, DME is made from natural gas and it is used as an environmentally adapted propellant in spray-cans. It can also be made from renewable raw materials in an energy-efficient process, in which case it would not contribute to global warming or the "greenhouse effect". The economic pre-requisites for DME are favourable in large-scale production. So far, however, it does not have an infrastructure for vehicle fuel distribution. The infrastructure for DME is expected to resemble that for LPG, an alternative fuel currently used by about 5% of cars in the Netherlands, for example.

DME's emission levels are very low
The emission levels for DME in the diesel process are very low, and conforms already in this project to the EU's expected Euro 4 (2005/06) legislation by a wide margin. Volvo's ambition has been to develop a prototype vehicle for demonstration and evaluation of DME in heavy trucks and buses. The potential for achieving further reductions in emission levels is very promising.