Catalytic Converters
Introduction
There are millions of cars on the road in the United States, and each one is a source of air pollution. Especially in large cities, the amount of pollution cars produce everyday is a lot. To solve those problems, many laws have been enacted restricting the amount of pollution that cars can produce. To make their cars as pollution-free as possible, automakers have made many refinements to car engines and fuel systems and have developed the catalytic converter. The catalytic converter treats the exhaust before it leaves the car, and removes a lot of the pollution.
In this project, we will study catalytic converters to find out how they work, and what their effects on our planet and society are. We predict that catalytic converters can change the amounts of products that result from the burning of gasoline, and think that these devices do a good job of making cars as pollution-free as possible.
How does a catalytic converter work?
In order to reduce emissions, modern car engines carefully control the amount of fuel they burn. They try to keep the air-to-fuel ratio very close to the stoichiometric point, when all of the fuel will be burned using all of the oxygen in the air. For gasoline, the stoichiometric ratio is about 14.7:1. However, this fuel mixture actually varies from the ideal ratio quite a bit during driving.
The main emmissions of a car engine are nitrogen gas, carbon dioxide, and water vapor.
Nitrogen gas makes up about 78% of the air, and most of this gas just passes right through the car. Carbon dioxide is one of the products of combusion. The carbon in the fuel bonds with the oxygen in the air to form carbon dioxide. Water vapor is the other product of combusion. The hydrogen in the fuel bonds with the oxygen in the air to form water vapor. However, the combustion process is never perfect, so some smaller amounts of more harmful emissions are also produced in car engines. They include carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons or volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxides. These are the three main regulated emissions, and also the ones that catalytic converters are designed to reduce.
Most modern cars are equipped with three-way catalytic converters. Three-way catalytic converters regulate the three harmful emmissions produced from car engines. The converter uses two different types of catalysts, a reduction catalyst and an oxidization catalyst. Both types consist of a ceramic structure coated with a metal catalyst.
Ideally an engine takes in Air (Oxygen and Nitrogen) and fuel (hydrocarbons) and produces CO2, H2O, and the N2 just passes through. However under normal driving conditions an engine will encounter lean conditions when cruising on the highway (better mileage) and rich conditions when accelerating (better power). The lean condition results in oxide and harmful nitrogen production. Rich conditions result in carbon monoxide production. For this reason catalytic converters are used on an engine’s exhaust.
...ese dangerously harmful gasses would be released into our atmosphere by all combustion engines. Although the catalytic converter when operating at its optimal temperature can break down over 95% percent of the harmful gasses produced by the engine it does not do a well at all when not at high temperatures. It takes about five miles of driving for most vehicles to reach a temperature at which the reactions will reach near completion, before this temperature the catalytic converter does practically nothing to convert these harmful gases. Some catalytic converters now have coils running from the engine to the catalytic converter to heat the catalytic converter to its optimal temperature soon after the engine has started to produce harmful gasses. With this improvement the catalytic converter can effectively reduce almost all of the carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide.
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“In the mid-1900’s, a man by the name Eugene Houdry began developing a catalytic converter after witnessing large amounts of smog in American cities” (Adams & Dumas, n.d.). The first catalytic converters that were made were used for the smoke stacks in the industrial environments. The converters used on the smoke stacks prevent toxic byproducts entering the atmosphere, just as the converters would do for the automobile exhausts. The converters worked great for the smoke stacks in the industrial environment; however there was a major setback for the catalytic converters for automobile exhausts. The lead that was used in the gasoline back in that day, the early 1900’s, “damaged the catalyst and rendered the converter useless. (Adams & Dumas, n.d.). Eventually, in 1973, “the Environmental Protection Agency made leaded gasoline illegal” (Adams & Dumas, n.d.). This greatly helped the cause for catalytic converters to be used in automobiles now that lead had been eliminated from gasoline, no longer making the catalytic converters useless.
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In today’s society, cars and other transportation vehicles produce pollution, harming the environment as well as one’s health. Engines produce toxic substances such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide. However, the invention of the catalytic converter has helped reduce the pollution. Catalytic converters were first used due to the contractions on toxic emission regulations in the 1970s. The catalytic converter “turn the harmful chemicals in vehicle exhausts into harmless gases such as steam” (Woodford). These catalytic converters are essential to creating a less polluted atmosphere. An engine with and without a catalytic converter differs greatly and the reactions occurring are very significant in understanding the role of the converter;
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In order to understand how catalytic converters work, one must understand that air and fuel burn in a car’s engine best at a specific ratio. The ratio for gasoline burning vehicles is approximately 14.7 pounds of air to one pound of gasoline. When there is more than 14.7 pounds of air for each pound of gas, the mixture is running lean. When the opposite occurs, meaning less that 14.7 pounds of air for each pound of gas, the mixture is rich.