Patent ID: 8783012

Claim:
A method for estimating an efficiency of a catalyst in an exhaust of an engine, comprising: ageing the catalyst consecutively at different temperatures for definite time periods; measuring the catalyst conversion efficiency after each ageing step; calculating an ageing factor for each step of an ageing procedure and an accumulative value of the ageing factors for all steps of the ageing procedure based on a formulation AF=Σ i (e (−E/RT i ) dt i ) whereby E/R=activation energy of a sintering process, T i =catalyst temperature over an i-th time interval over a catalyst lifetime and dt i =length of the i-th time interval over the catalyst lifetime; estimating an activation energy of an ageing process (E a /R) for the catalyst; estimating catalyst efficiency correlation factors related to the measured catalyst conversion efficiency for each temperature point and for all ageing conditions; determining a correlation between the catalyst efficiency correlation factors and the accumulative value of the ageing factors; calculating the conversion efficiency of the aged catalyst based on a predetermined correlation between the accumulative ageing factor and the catalyst efficiency correlation factor, obtaining the catalyst efficiency correlation factors for the catalyst aged at a lowest temperature; and estimating the activation energy of the ageing process (E a /R) and a modified reaction rate coefficient (k 0 ′) based on the obtained catalyst efficiency correlation factors; and calculating the conversion efficiency of the aged catalyst based on the activation energy of the ageing process (E a /R) and the modified reaction rate coefficient (k 0 ′) together with a predetermined correlation between the accumulative ageing factor and the catalyst efficiency correlation factor, wherein a reaction rate coefficient (k 0 ) and/or a reaction rate constant (k) and/or a relative reaction rate constant (k′) and the activation energy of the ageing process (E a /R) are based on a formulation where the reaction rate constant is a product of the modified reaction rate coefficient and an exponential of a negative of the activation energy divided by a temperature.