The formula for strong partners for eco-friendly mobility in China.

One of the most urgent problems facing China today is air pollution, which has increased dramatically as traffic volumes have exploded. Surging levels of industrial production have caused the volumes of goods transported by road to soar; in addition, many members of today’s growing middle classes can now afford to own and run a car.

The dimensions of this pollution problem become clear when we take a look at the numbers of cars sold – at almost 25 million, compared to 3.2 million in car-friendly Germany. In addition, China is vast, and travel distances within the country are huge; its network of motorways totals 120,000 kilometres. The Chinese government has recognized the potential offered by natural gas, an environmentally friendly and low-pollutant fuel, in reducing traffic-related air pollution.

Compared with their petrol-driven counterparts, natural gas engines emit 25 per cent less carbon dioxide, 60 per cent less carbon monoxide, and zero particulate. Bosch is a global specialist in fuel injection systems and engine components.The company has developed a test rig for analysing fuel injection systems, with two BAUER CTA 23.2 compressors that provide the highly compressed natural gas required for the test procedures. These high-performance water-cooled systems can compress 140 cubic metres of natural gas per hour; the gas is supplied from the local natural gas network at a pressure of 0.8 bar, and is compressed to the necessary final pressure of 200 bar by the compressor units.

The gas is then dried in a multistage process and stored in high-pressure storage tanks for access when required. Both the BAUER systems have already thoroughly proved their reliability, delivering over 2000 hours of smooth, trouble-free operation so far. This stellar ‘made in Germany’ quality also convinced FAW Injection Systems Manufacturing, a Chinese state-owned company, which immediately decided to order two systems of the same type.