Patent ID: 8312709

Claim:
A method of heating a catalytic converter arranged in an exhaust-gas region of an internal combustion engine operated with direct fuel injection into combustion chambers, the method comprising: operating the internal combustion engine with a sub-optimum ignition angle efficiency and an apportionment of a fuel quantity that is to be injected before a start of a combustion into at least two partial injections; compensating for a torque loss that results from the sub-optimum ignition angle efficiency and from the apportionment of the fuel to be injected by an increased charge of the combustion chambers; coordinating the fuel quantity and the charge with one another to produce an air ratio lambda of the combustion chamber charges that is greater than 1; ascertaining a measure for a temperature of the catalytic converter; and increasing a quantity of reducing exhaust-gas constituents by at least one intervention into an open-loop control of the internal combustion engine if the measure for the temperature of the catalytic converter exceeds a predetermined temperature threshold value.