Interaction between PT catalyst and ozone for catalytic carbon monoxide oxidation

Abstract

Both gasoline and diesel engines are trending toward highly fuel-efficient engines that produce lower exhaust gas temperature. Subsequently, emissions of hydrocarbons (HCs) and carbon monoxide (CO) have become severe issues, whereas the previous problem of NOx has become negligible. We show that the addition of O 3 generated by non-thermal plasmas can activate catalytic oxidation of CO in vehicle exhaust at the low temperatures typical of the cold-start problem in automobile engines. Our empirical results confirm that supplying a small amount of O 3 at low temperature results in a CO removal rate equivalent to that at double the operating temperature when using a catalyst alone. The removal rate of CO was found to be sensitive to the concentration of O 3 ; thus, by optimizing the concentration of O 3 , catalytic CO oxidation could be achieved within 1 min. A possible reaction mechanism will be discussed in the paper1 to explain how catalytic CO oxidation may be activated but subsequently becomes less effective at higher O 3 concentration. In our experiment, C 3 H 8 and C 3 H 6 were added to evaluate the effects of each gas on the enhancement of CO removal rate by O 3 . Moreover, the rate of CO removal was evaluated with increasing O 3 concentration for practical applications such as the cold-start problem.