Reducing Toxic Emissions with a Catalytic Converter

Central Idea Statement: There has been three major technologies added to diesel exhaust systems since 2003 including an EGR, DPF, and SCR that have dramatically reduced NOx emissions (smog gases).

Fuel efficiency in automobiles has become a topic of much discussion in recent years in the United States. This is due largely to the environmental devastation that fuel emissions cause, but it is also sparked by the rising fuel costs. Making cars with high fuel efficiency not only saves consumers money, but also will drastically reduce the pollution that is caused by emissions. Today automakers are putting a tremendous amount of effort into making their cars more fuel efficient, both to meet government regulations and to make their car more appealing to the consumer.

Petrol engines in cars produce a number of pollutants which can be removed by catalytic converters.

Our modern society relies on cars as its main form of transportation, but the Earth’s supplies of petrol are becoming increasingly limited. There are concerns about the greenhouse gases and other gaseous contaminants emitted by cars. This has created a search for environmentally friendly alternatives.

The catalyst, acts as a reduction and oxidation catalyst. Catalysts are used as they increase the surface area for the reaction to occur. Reduction is usually the first stage where Platinum breaks apart the bonds of the Nitrogen Oxide by making stronger ionic bonds with the Nitrogen than the Covalent bonds present between the Nitrogen and Oxygen. Therefore, the Nitrogen molecules form a strong bond with the platinum and the Oxygen forms a strong diatomic bond which ensures that it won’t re-bond with nitrogen as its valence shell is complete. After a while, the Nitrogen atoms will similarly form a diatomic bond, N2. The second stage is the oxidation catalyzing where Carbon Monoxide and other Hydrocarbons are converted into less harmful substances. This relies solely on the purity of the air. The hydrocarbons and Carbon Monoxide are burned in the environment so that they have a chance of mixing with the oxygen in the environment to form Carbon Dioxide and Water Vapor. This is not very efficient as the temperatures required for the catalyst and oxygen to activate and form bonds with the Hydrocarbons are around 200 – 500℃. Sometimes, unwanted particles like Sulfur mix with the catalyst lowering the efficiency of

For example, when natural gas burns the combustion leaves almost no sulfur dioxide emissions in the air and all other emissions are far less than other fossil fuels. The reduction of these toxic emissions will help us reduce two of the main air pollution issues we face today -- acid rain and carbon monoxide ozone pollution.

This is 47 year old AAM. Patient reports he haven't been tiaking his insulin as prescribed. Patient stated that he at times he is fotgetting to take the insuline at all. Patient deneis chest pain, SOB, N/V/ D, or fever.Current pain 2/10, gas pain per patient. Patient is a current tobacco user, denies use oa alcohol, or illicit drug use. Denies dperessive moods.

(2) Therefore, molecular structures such as aromatics, cycloalkanes and branched hydrocarbons are beneficial in increasing octane rating. The process of catalytic reforming can be used to convert heavier straight-chained hydrocarbons to aromatic or highly branched hydrocarbons to increase the octane rating. The advantage of doing this is to keep the engine running smoothly and to keep extra pressure and spontaneous combustion from occurring. (3)

(i) different metal oxides are reduced to metals by the reducing gases and then form HEAs as the building blocks. (ii) different metal oxides form complex multicomponent oxides, followed by in situ reduction to HEAs by the reducing gases. According to thermodynamics, it is impossible to obtain metallic aluminum and chromium in the autocombustion process because Al2O3 and Cr2O3 cannot be reduced to metals by any type of the gases formed in the combustion. Therefore, the synthesis of CoCrCuNiAl HEAs is through the second route. Recently, (Co,Cu,Mg,Ni,Zn)O high-entropy oxides (HEOs) were synthesized by pyrolyzing nitrates of the individual metals according to the report of Sarkar et al.25 Similar with HEAs, HEOs containing five or more metals in equiatomic amounts will be formed because of the high mixing entropy. Hence, the oxide phase in the XRD patterns of the combustion product with fuel–oxidant ratios less than 1:1 is likely to be (Co,Cr,Cu,Ni,Al)O HEO. In the HEOs, the metallic elements are bonded together and ordered in thermodynamics to form the structure of A–B–C–D–E–O (where A, B, C, D, and E denote the metallic elements and O represents oxygen), as shown in Figure 1f. There is always an intermediate anion separating neighboring cation lattice sites, and no single component metal oxide phases exist in the (Co,Cr,Cu,Ni,Al)O HEOs, so that the reduction of Al3+ and Cr3+ can

Periodically, the engine switches to a richer air-fuel mixture that increases the content of unburned hydrocarbons (HC) in the exhaust. In the presence of the platinum catalyst in the LNT, the HC reacts with the NOX, converting everything to nitrogen, water and carbon dioxide. Once the NOX in the trap has been consumed the engine reverts to lean operation and the cycle starts over again.” (Motavalli 2015)

If greenhouse gases were nonexistent, the Earth’s atmosphere would be 33 degrees Celsius colder than it is currently. Throughout the past century, the entire Earth has increased in temperature by nearly .5 degrees Celsius. (Hopwood and Cohen) One contributor to this problem is vehicle fuel emissions. These emissions are seriously affecting the health of humans. As a result, scientists are working on alternate fuel vehicles and zero-emission vehicles.

Carbon capture technology has been in use for several decades in the oil industry, however with environmental worries the technology is being developed to be implemented into power plants, as they are main source of CO2 emissions. There are three methods of Carbon capture: Post combustion capture, Pre combustion capture and Oxy-fuel combustion capture. The method used is dependent on the fuel being burnt and the percentage composition of the stack flue.

In today's society there is a great need for environmental protection. Things that happened during our parents and grandparents age have caused a great concern for our ozone, our air, and our environment. You constantly hear about the many sources of pollution, but we hardly ever hear about the solutions. In this paper I will present one possible solution to the air pollution problem that has been caused by too many automobile emissions being released into the air. This possible solution deals with switching from diesel gas, to fuel trucks and bus fleets, to natural gas. I will discuss how this switch would assist in the reduction of air pollution and in this way help the environment.

Stirling engine can work on any solid or liquid fuel with very low exhaust emission. It operates without noise, have low cycle torque variation and a flat part-load characteristics. With this type of advantageous attributes, Stirling engine come into sight for use in automotive application. Nevertheless, Stirling engine has very less realistic practical application in automotive. The reason behind that is easily availability of liquid fuel and internal combustion engine. Stirling engines are more expensive and most complicated than IC engine. In addition to that, it has low power density and sealing problems while working on high pressure and high speed. Moreover, It requires twice efficient cooling system compared to other engine of equivalent power.

The efficiency of an automobile engine is low as all the energy produced by the engine by burning the fuel is not used completely. A large portion of the energy is lost in friction, cooling and exhaust heat. This lost energy is almost around 50% [1]. Heat is a major reason for the loss in efficiency. All of the automotive industry is working towards reducing the losses by making more efficient technologies which can improve the vehicle efficiency.