Phosphorus Emissions Index
The Phosphorus Emissions Index was developed to provide the automotive, petroleum, and additive industry with a new means of measuring the catalyst-contaminating potential of an engine oil formulation. The approach uses the Selby-Noack volatility test to provide the volatile material from an engine oil and measure the phosphorus content. Such information was previously available only with considerable difficulty and uncertainty. Already the technique has shown that phosphorus emissions may be independent of engine oil volatility rather than dependent upon it as previously thought.

Catalyst life is very important to the automobile manufacturers since the catalyst must be effective for 100,000 miles to meet government standards. The Phosphorus Emissions Index in the IOM reports may be a help in developing additives and engine oil formulations having much more effective control over phosphorus emissions.
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