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Traditional approaches to pollution control have been to develop benign non-polluting processes or to abate emissions at the tailpipe or stack before emitting to the atmosphere. A new technology called PremAir®* Catalyst Systems takes a different approach and directly reduces ambient ground level ozone. This technology can be applied to both mobile and stationary applications. For automotive applications, the new system involves placing a catalytic coating on the car's radiator or air conditioner condenser. As air passes over the radiator or condenser, the catalyst converts the ozone into oxygen. Three Volvo vehicles with a catalyst coating on the radiator were tested on the road during the 1997 summer ozone season in southern California to assess performance. Studies were also conducted in Volvo's laboratory to determine the effect of the catalyst coating on the radiator's performance with regard to corrosion, heat transfer and pressure drop.

Traditional approaches to pollution control have been to develop benign, non-polluting processes or to abate emissions at the tailpipe or stack before release to the atmosphere. A new technology called PremAir® Catalyst Systems1 takes a different approach and directly reduces ambient, ground level ozone. For mobile applications, the new system involves coating a heat exchange device in a vehicle, such as the radiator or air conditioning condenser. The catalyst converts ozone to oxygen as ozone-containing ambient air passes over the coated surface of the radiator. The technology is relatively simple and provides a positive benefit to the environment while being totally passive to the end user application. Volvo Car Corporation was the first automobile manufacturer to voluntarily introduce the technology on their S80 luxury sedan. Nissan Motor Corporation is also using the technology on their new Sentra CA (Clean Air) certified PZEV vehicle for California.

Classical approaches to pollution control have been to develop benign, non-polluting processes or to abate emissions at the tailpipe or stack before release to the atmosphere. A new technology called PremAir® Catalyst Systems1 takes a different approach and reduces ambient, ground level ozone directly. This technology takes advantage of the huge volumes of air which are processed daily by both mobile and stationary heat exchange devices. For mobile applications, the new system involves placing a catalytic coating on a vehicle's radiator or air conditioning condenser. For stationary applications, the catalytic coating typically is applied to an insert, which is attached to the air conditioning condenser. In either case, the catalyst converts ozone to oxygen as ozone containing ambient air passes over the coated radiator or condenser surfaces.

Recently Volvo Car Corporation introduced the new PremAir® catalyst system from Engelhard Corporation on their S80 luxury sedan and the new V70 estate wagon. In this paper, performance results of this catalyst system after long-term mileage accumulation will be presented. Urban taxi vehicles were used to test the catalyst over 110,000 miles. The rate of deactivation in long-term catalyst performance was found to be dependent on the radiator design, and was least for the radiator design with the highest total geometric surface area. Subsequently, a new catalyst version was developed in order to minimize the deactivation rate. This new catalyst has been evaluated under similar taxi driving conditions over 80,000 miles, and has shown improved durability performance.