Patent ID: 8833061

Claim:
A method for regenerating at least one exhaust gas aftertreatment component for filtering soot particles in an internal combustion engine, wherein the internal combustion engine has a first group of cylinders, whose exhaust gases are guided through a first exhaust gas channel and whose fuel/air mixture ratio is set via a first fuel metering system, which activated via a control unit, by a first control loop for setting a first lambda value based on the signal of the first exhaust gas sensor, which is situated in the first exhaust gas channel in the flow direction of the exhaust gas, upstream from a first exhaust gas aftertreatment component for filtering the soot particles, and has at least one second group of cylinders, whose exhaust gases are guided through a further exhaust gas channel and whose fuel/air mixture ratio is set via a further fuel metering system by a further control loop to set a further lambda value based on the signal of a further exhaust gas sensor, which is situated in the further exhaust gas channel in the flow direction of the exhaust gas upstream from a second exhaust gas aftertreatment component for filtering the soot particles, the first and second exhaust gas channels being joined together downstream from the first and second exhaust gas aftertreatment components for filtering the soot particles to form a shared exhaust gas channel, in which a shared catalytic converter is situated, the method comprising: selecting the first exhaust gas aftertreatment component situated in the first exhaust gas channel for regeneration; and regenerating the first exhaust gas aftertreatment component by initially heating up the first exhaust gas aftertreatment component followed by (i) setting a first lambda value in the first exhaust gas channel, assigned to the first cylinder group, to a lambda value λ>1 with the aid of a lambda modulation, and (ii) simultaneously setting a second lambda value λ<1, in the second exhaust gas channel assigned to the second cylinder group, whereby a total lambda value λ=1 results in the shared exhaust gas channel.