A team of engineers from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering have received a $1.9 million grant from the Department of Energy to develop a new exhaust-gas catalyst system that will dramatically reduce emissions for automobiles, power plants, and other industrial processes.
The funding, which expands an existing DOE grant, will support Marc Donohue, Chao Wang, and principal research scientist Gregory Aranovich as they work to produce a commercially viable system that kicks in just after an engine turns on, allowing it to begin mitigating emissions when the engine is running rich and emissions are at their highest. Current emissions systems have higher “light-off” temperatures, so they are ineffective until the exhaust catalyst has become hot.
“This discovery may represent a paradigm shift in understanding catalytic behavior and potentially could significantly increase the rates of many catalytic processes of industrial interests,” Donohue said.