Device to control the heating of a heatable catalytic converter

摘要

A thermal control system for the heater of a catalytic converter (11) coupled to an IC engine employs a hydrocarbon sensor or other pollutant detector (12) immediately downstream of the converter (11) as positioned within the converter's active elements (20,21). The sensor signals are evaluated (15) for checking against stored norms (16) in the comparator (17) and when agreed tolerances are exceeded an error signal is used to activate an electrically heated element (22) of the converter (11) or to trigger a recirculation of the exhaust gases which generates a similar result.