Abstract:
A filtering body is obtained for particulate of diesel engines, consisting of a ceramic foam that is produced, starting from a ceramic-material powder-based suspension (slurry), by preparing a preform of polymeric foam material and impregnating the said preform with the ceramic-powder slurry so as to distribute the slurry evenly on the preform, and by then subjecting the body thus obtained to a thermal cycle of sintering in such a way as to pyrolyze the polymeric material and obtain a high-porosity ceramic material. The ceramic-material powder is chosen from among mullite powder, alumina powder, zirconia powder, and mixtures thereof, having very high purity, controlled grain-size, and a high specific surface.
Abstract:
A particulate filter for diesel engines comprises a metal shell or casing inside which is set a filtering body made of ceramic foam. The filtering body is made up of a plurality of separate elements made of ceramic foam and having a substantially plane and elongated shape, which are set about a longitudinal axis of the shell in such a way as to define, inside the shell, an inner chamber (B) set inside the array of filtering elements and at least one outer chamber (A) set outside the array. The said chambers respectively communicate with the intake pipe and with the outlet pipe, or vice versa, in such a way that, during use, the flow of the engine exhaust gases that traverses the shell passing from the intake pipe to the outlet pipe (or vice versa) is forced to traverse the aforesaid filtering elements, thus assuming a component of radial velocity with respect to the longitudinal axis of the shell.