Patent ID: 8307635

Claim:
An exhaust purification system of an internal combustion engine, comprising: a NO X catalyst device which has a reducing material holding ability for holding reducing material and can reduce NO X by using the reducing material; and an electronic control unit that includes program logic, which when executed: determines whether or not a difference between a target amount of reducing material held by the NO X catalyst device and a current amount of reducing material held by the NO X catalyst devise is larger than a set amount; performs a first control, in which an amount of the reducing material of an equivalence ratio over 1 for an amount of NO X in the exhaust gas flowing into said NO X catalyst device is supplied to said NO X catalyst device when the difference is larger than the set amount until said NO X catalyst device holds a preset target amount of the reducing material; and performs a second control in which the amount of the reducing material of the equivalence ratio of a predetermined value for the amount of NO X in the exhaust gas flowing into said NO X catalyst device is supplied to said NO X catalyst device when the difference is less than or equal to the set amount, wherein, when the second control is performed, the amount of the reducing material of the equivalence ratio over 1 for the amount of NO X in the exhaust gas flowing into said NO X catalyst device is supplied to said NO X catalyst device when a high NO X purification rate is required even if the current amount of reducing material held by the NO X catalyst device is larger than the target amount of reducing material held by the NO x catalyst device.