Toward cleaner vehicle emissions: catalyst technologies for today and tomorrow

Talk by Dr Andrew York, Johnson Matthey and Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology

Please register through https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/catalyst-technologies-for-today-and-tomorrow-tickets-16814581867

The catalytic converter’s story has many chapters, from the early application of oxidation catalysts in California, through widespread application of three-way catalysts in gasoline vehicles, and more recently the control of exhaust emissions from diesel vehicles which include particulate matter.

In this lecture, methods for tackling emissions from gasoline and diesel (and lean burn) vehicle exhaust emissions using catalytic aftertreatment devices in production today will be presented. Also an overview of some advances in the industry, and future requirements and challenges for tomorrow’s catalysts will be given.

The lecture will address a range of catalyst systems, with a detailed discussion of the particulate filter devices now used for removing particulate matter from vehicle exhausts. In this part of the lecture some results from research at Cambridge University (Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology) will be shown to demonstrate the use of magnetic resonance imaging to study these filter systems.

In the future, the exhaust emissions aftertreatment industry faces a number of key challenges.  Legislation will continue to tighten, and aftertreatment devices will be necessary in a host of new applications (e.g. trains, marine, and non-road mobile machinery (e.g. farm and construction).  Furthermore, aftertreatment systems will be required to operate in a much wider range of fuels or fuel combustion products, such as from ethanol, methanol, biofuels, etc.  Therefore looking ahead the design of novel, improved, multifunctional catalysts will become extremely important.