Minimising HGV exhaust emissions is crucial to improving air quality

With analysis of data collected by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science revealing a significant reduction in air pollutants since the first pandemic lockdown in March last year, there has been a renewed emphasis on improving air quality.  During this challenging time, both manufacturers and operators have shown great flexibility to ensure logistics demand has been met and essential transport services have kept running.  To support them, international leader in Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) cleaning and refurbishment, Ceramex, has maintained operations to ensure its truck and bus customers remain emission compliant.

Dr Colin Lewis, Managing Director of Ceramex, comments:

“Following the announcement by ACEA that all trucks sold in Europe from 2040 must be emission free in order to meet the EU’s mandate for carbon neutrality by 2050, we must not lose sight of the immediate need to minimise harmful exhaust emissions from current HGVs. There are over 400,000 diesel-fuelled HGVs operating in the UK, plus thousands of foreign registered trucks, so it’s just as important to keep their emissions control systems running as efficiently as possible, in accordance with Euro VI emissions regulations.

“We are now seeing signs of recovery as customer demand for DPF cleaning gradually starts returning to pre-pandemic levels, not least because there’s been a significant uplift in HGV movements. This is primarily a result of greater demands on the logistics sector, as the lockdowns have forced consumers to shift to online shopping and home grocery deliveries.  As part of Ceramex’s planned expansion strategy to meet this growth in demand, we have more than doubled our DPF cleaning capacity with the opening of a brand-new facility in Reading. This investment of over £3 million in our long-term future enables us to have the capacity to process a significantly high number of DPFs per week, in order to anticipate and respond to the increasing requirements of our pan-European customer base.”

Ceramex’s patented Xpurge DPF cleaning process uses a combination of purified water and air to remove accumulated soot and ash deposits from the filter. As the deposits are suspended in water, there is no risk of them entering the atmosphere.  The water and solids are then separated and disposed of under strict controlled conditions. Ceramex has also developed proprietary technology for inspecting DPFs. The condition of each unit is inspected using the company’s patented Veritex system and by other various methods, not least catalytic performance.”

Concludes Dr Lewis:

“Overall, our expansion and investment confirms our focus on supporting customers, helping them to keep their truck and bus fleets emission compliant and operating efficiently but also demonstrates the commitment of Ceramex to play its part in the drive towards cleaner air.”

For more information on our range of services, please contact us.