 Pune-based
Emitec (India) is evaluat-ing the retrofitment market. The company, which
has a manufacturing facility at Hinjewadi on the outskirts of Pune is
working with the Pune Municipal Corporation for retrofitting its buses to
meet the tightening emission norms on an evaluation basis. Targeting a
capacity of 10 million units by the year 2010 compared to the current 5
million, according to Chris Dias, managing director of Emitec Emission
Control Technologies India, the company that started as a supplier of metal
substrate catalysts to two- and three-wheeler manufacturers in India has
expanded its product offering to include four-wheeler and commercial vehicle
applications.
Emitec (India) is a subsidiary of Emitec GmbH and was established in 1996,
nearly 10 years after Lohmar-based Emitec GmbH was founded on 11 August,
1986. According to sources close to Emitec, the idea behind the
establishment of the company was born out of the challenge to produce a
durable component out of a metal substrate for catalytic converters made
from thin steel foils. The idea was attractive as the only ones available on
the market were ceramic catalyst substrates. Ceramic substrates, according
to Dias, have their advantages and disadvantages, which show up as emission
regulations tighten.
Two conditions had to be met before a production-ready metal substrate could
be developed. The first was how to braze thin metal foils to each other and
to the cladding tube at high temperatures. The other problem was how to
overcome the rigid, coiled spiral shape of the foil packets. It wasn't until
the invention of the S-shape that the foil packets became sufficiently
flexible to withstand extreme temperature fluctuations without damage. Both
solutions together made it possible to build metal substrates of any size
and paved the way to an extraordinary variety of designs. The groundwork was
laid at Interatom, a subsidiary of Siemens. The team involved Wolfgang Maus,
Emitec's long-serving managing director and research engineers, who during
their professional careers had worked on technologically complex projects at
the limit of what was possible in reactor engineering. These included
material development, the development and processing of high-alloy steels
and innovative joining technologies.
With the technical problems relating to high-temperature-resistant brazing
and the S-shape of the metal foils solved, Maus and his colleague, Dr Rolf
Kottman, decided to form a company that built and marketed metal substrates.
They managed to bring Siemens and GKN on board and operations were located
at Lohmar in Germany. A production line with simple equipment was set up.
The first project of Emitec included Jaguar in 1986, which used the
technology in its 12-cylinder export model for the US, and a Canadian
manufacturer of industrial diesel engines. The German car industry soon
followed suit and the system found application in the BMW Alpina and in
models from Mercedes Benz and Porsche. An American branch was opened in 1996
and three years later Emitec acquired a site in Eisenach in Thuringia and
built its second plant to take care of the increasing demand. In April 2006
Emitec started production in India.
Explaining the role of Emitec's Indian operations, Dias states, "We
have the technology and the manufacturing capability here. We are focusing
on cars, commercial vehicles and off-highway applications. We have a strong
focus on Asia, and China and India in particular. We expect India to
overtake China in small cars and feel that everything will sell." Dias
stresses on the fact that his company would also be focusing on small
customers as part of the vision to promote clean mobility. Emitec, which has
an application centre in India and R&D in Germany, is looking at
catering to small end products market out of India and the high-end products
market with imports from Germany. "Each engine requires tailoring of
catalyst or overdeveloped products," remarks Dias.
"Future technologies are focused on improving diesel technology."
Emitec is developing new emission control technologies and among the most
recent include the SCR (selective catalyst reduction) technology, which uses
ammonia to directly reduce NOx. With this technology, potential NOx
reduction rates range from 70 to 90 per cent. Using a structured (spiral
shaped coated metal substrates) Metalit with LS- and PE-Design, both of
which create a turbulence effect, the catalyst volume can be dramatically
reduced compared to straight-channel, flow-through catalysts. This dramatic
reduction in volume enhances packaging while reducing both weight and cost.
"You should look at the Chevrolet Optra Magnum," states Dias,
"it has our particulate filter."
Touching upon the retrofitment project with Pune Municipal Corporation, Dias
explains that Emitec has a huge presence in the retrofitment market in South
Korea. In India, the company is already catering to a number of four wheeler
and commercial vehicle manufacturers like Tata, Ashok Leyland, M&M, GM
India, etc. Commanding nearly 60 per cent of the two-wheeler catalyst
converter market and 100 per cent three-wheeler market according to Dias,
the largest customer of Emitec India is Bajaj Auto. "Metal substrate
catalysts will increase as emission regulations grow tighter; they will also
extend to off-highway vehicles," Dias signs off.
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