The new catalyst cleans exhaust from diesel engines

Diesel engines today have become an indispensable part of daily life and industrial activities.From cars and trains to industrial machinery, many of these engines are used. They have some preeminent properties but also exist many limitations.

While high-performance diesel engines over gasoline engines and catalytic converters can be cleaned when discharged, the drawback is that they emit more toxic emissions such as nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide and the price The platinum needed for the above-mentioned conversion equipment is not cheap up to 1473 USD / ounce. Recently scientists at Nanostellar in Redwood, California have developed a mineral catalyst that has superior performance compared to plantinum but is economical in terms of cost.

Plantinum is an excellent catalyst despite some limitations. One of the biggest problems now is that labor violence in South Africa has made the price of Plantinum skyrocket. Besides, the World Health Organization WHO ranked emissions from diesel engines as a carcinogen, making the need to use the platinum in transducers in millions of predicted vehicles exceed the source. supply. The research team was led by Dr. Kyeongjae 'KJ' Cho, professor of science and physical engineering at UT Dallas and co-founder of Nanostellar found an alternative mineral catalyst at a lower cost.

In a report published in the August 17 issue of Science, Cho gave a computer model showing that mullite is an effective low cost alternative to Platinum. Mullite is a silicate mineral found on Mull Island, Scotland in 1924. Although rare in nature, mullite can be manufactured artificially for use in ceramics and porcelain. Mullite has a very high melting point, at 1840 degrees Celsius and is an oxide mineral that should be a very attractive catalyst. In addition, experiments have shown that converters using mullite will reduce emissions by up to 45% compared to using platinum.

According to Dr. Cho, the goal of the team is to completely transfer the use of precious metals today and replace them with common oxide compounds in the environment. They have also found new possibilities to create alternative energy technologies by designing new functional materials that are not limited by the supply of precious metals.

The new catalyst called Noxicat will be developed for commercial purposes and further as a fuel cell application.

Reference: Gizmag