As cars become more fuel-efficient, less heat is wasted in the exhaust, which makes it harder to clean up the pollutants that are emitted. But researchers have recently created a catalyst capable of reducing pollutants at the lower temperatures expected in advanced engines. Their work, published this week in Science magazine, a leading peer-reviewed research journal, presents a new way to create a more powerful catalyst while using smaller amounts of platinum, the most expensive component of emission-control catalysts.
As cars become more fuel-efficient, less heat is wasted in the exhaust, which makes it harder to clean up the pollutants that are emitted. But researchers have recently created a catalyst capable of reducing pollutants at the lower temperatures expected in advanced engines. Their work, published this week in Science magazine, a leading peer-reviewed research journal, presents a new way to create a more powerful catalyst while using smaller amounts of platinum, the most expensive component of emission-control catalysts.
The recent findings grew out of a collaboration between research groups led by Yong Wang, who holds a joint appointment at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and is a Voiland Distinguished Professor at Washington State University's Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering and Abhaya Datye, a distinguished professor at the University of New Mexico.
Catalysts have been an integral part of the exhaust systems of diesel- and gasoline-powered engines since the mid-1970s when federal regulations called for reductions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides. Catalytic converters transform the pollutants to nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water.
Read more at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
