The 400-millionth lambda sensor recently rolled off the production line at Bosch. Bosch first marketed the exhaust sensor 30 years ago. It was an innovation that facilitated the regulated catalytic converter to make gasoline engines extremely clean. "Each year Bosch manufactures more than 40 million lambda sensors in Germany, the USA, Korea and China which makes it the world's market leader" explains Dr. Steffen Berns, Executive Vice President Engineering for Gasoline Systems at Bosch.
Bosch was using the technology of oxygen measurement, needed for the exhaust sensor, in battery manufacture as early as 1968. The company benefited from this expertise in the 1970s, when the exhaust gas regulations in the USA were radically tightened: Bosch presented the first lambda sensor suitable for series production in 1976. Ten years after making its debut in the US-version of the Volvo 240/260 series, Bosch celebrated delivery of the ten-millionth lambda sensor. In 1993 the figure was 50 million, and by 2001 it had reached 250 million sensors.
Lambda sensors support effective suppression of harmful exhaust pollutants in vehicles with gasoline engines. Inserted in the exhaust system in front of and behind the catalytic converter, they measure the oxygen content, which is an indicator for the quality of combustion. This allows the engine control unit to make corrections to the injection system and thereby to facilitate optimum operation of three-way catalytic converters. Since 2002, the lambda sensors have also been used with diesel engines to adjust the quantity of injected fuel more precisely and achieve reduced pollutant emissions.
