Patent ID: 7737081

Claim:
A method of operating a catalyst for treating an exhaust gas of an internal combustion engine, which catalyst, in addition to catalytically active noble metals, also comprises storage components for storing hydrocarbons, characterized in that a respective loading of the storage components with hydrocarbons is continuously calculated, and timely regeneration of the storage components is repeatedly initiated on the basis of the calculated loading value before any excessively high loading value can result in thermal damage during regeneration of the storage components, wherein (i) the loading of the storage components is determined by continued integration from a respective concentration of the hydrocarbons in the exhaust gas and a respective temperature of the catalyst, which takes temperature-dependent adsorption properties of the storage components into account, the concentration of the hydrocarbons in the exhaust gas being continuously calculated and the temperature at the catalyst being either measured or calculated as well, and (ii) the calculation of the respective concentration of the hydrocarbons in the exhaust gas is carried out by means of an engine model or using previously stored characteristic maps; and (iii) the respective catalyst temperature is calculated using a catalyst model in connection with the engine model or using the previously stored characteristic maps.