All about Catalytic Converter In Pakistan
A catalytic converter is an exhaust emission control device which, by catalysing a redox reaction (an oxidation and a reduction reaction), transforms toxic gases and exhaust gas pollutants from an internal combustion engine into less toxic pollutants. Catalytic converters, like lean-burn engines as well as kerosene heaters and stoves, are commonly used for internal combustion engines powered by either gasoline or diesel.
In the United States car industry, the first widespread implementation of catalytic converters was. The U.S. to comply with Stricter control of exhaust emissions by the Environmental Protection Agency, most gasoline-powered vehicles are fitted with catalytic converters beginning with the 1975 model year. These “two-way” converters combine oxygen with carbon monoxide ( CO) and unburned hydrocarbons (CnHn) to create carbon dioxide ( CO2) and water ( H2O).
Two-way catalytic converters were made redundant by “three-way” converters in 1981, which also reduced nitrogen oxides (NOO).
x); However, for lean-burn engines, two-way converters are still used. This is because three-way converters need rich or stoichiometric combustion in order to reduce NOO successfully.
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Though catalytic converters are most widely used in automotive exhaust systems, they are also used in electrical generators, forklifts, mining machinery, trucks , buses, locomotives, motorcycles and ships. They are also used to regulate pollution on certain wood stoves. This is usually in response, either through direct environmental regulation or through health and safety legislation, to government regulation.
History
At the end of the 19th century, when only a few thousand ‘oil vehicles’ were on the roads, catalytic converter prototypes were first produced in France; they were constructed of an inert material coated with platinum, iridium and palladium, sealed into a double metallic cylinder.
Eugene Houdry, a French mechanical engineer and pioneer in catalytic oil refining, who came to the United States in 1930, patented a catalytic converter a few decades later. Houdry became concerned about the role of smokestack emissions and vehicle exhaust in air pollution when the findings of early studies of smog in Los Angeles were published and formed a company called Oxy-Catalyst. First, Houdry invented catalytic converters for smokestacks called “cats” for short, and later developed catalytic converters for low-grade, unleaded fuel for warehouse forklifts.He started working in the mid-1950s to improve catalytic converters for gasoline engines used in vehicles.
Until tighter pollution control laws forced the removal of the antiknock agent tetraethyl lead from automotive fuel, widespread adoption of catalytic converters did not occur. Lead is a poison of a catalyst and will effectively foul a catalytic converter by covering the surface of the catalyst.
A series of engineers including Carl D. Keith, John J. Mooney, Antonio Eleazar, and Phillip Messina at Engelhard Corporation have further developed catalytic converters,making the first output catalytic converter in 1973.
In the early 1970s, William C. Pfefferle invented a catalytic combustor for gas turbines, enabling combustion without substantial nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide formation.
