Technical Paper
Use of Catalytic Monoliths for On-Road Ozone Destruction
1998-02-23
980677
The automotive clean-air catalyst system from Engelhard Corporation (PremAir™) consists of a catalyst-coated vehicle radiator and air-conditioning condenser designed to catalytically remove ground-level ozone and carbon monoxide (CO) from ambient air. Although initial on-road testing of the PremAir™ system showed reasonably high ozone conversion activity and satisfactory catalyst durability during the course of relatively low mileage accumulation, the long-term durability of the catalyst coating, its potential negative impact on cooling efficiency and corrosion characteristics, and incompatibility with the existing radiator manufacturing process remain among the issues of some concern. This paper describes an alternative approach to the problem of on-road pollutant destruction, which involves placing a thin catalytic monolith brick immediately behind the uncoated vehicle radiator.