The removal of carbon monoxide by iron oxide nanoparticles in car exhaust

With the implementation of cars into our everyday life, a dangerous aspect of this luxury became apparent; exhaust gases. The oxidation of gasoline in the engine to CO2 and H2O is far from completely efficient. To fight with this problem, various laws and regulations were made. These emission standards limit the maximum amount of harmful substances a car exhaust can release. The pollutants that are limited today by these regulations are hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM). Advances in engine and vehicle technology continually reduce the amount of pollutants generated, but this is generally considered insufficient to meet emissions goals. Therefore, technologies to react with and clean up the remaining emissions have long been an essential part of emissions control. This study focuses on the oxidation of soot in diesel exhaust gases using Fe2O3 as a model catalyst. The purpose is to establish a thermally stable nanosized Fe2O3 catalyst for use in diesel exhaust emissions. Nano-sized Fe2O3 was produced using sol-gel method. The synthesis of bulk Fe2O3 was carried out by polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) technique. Thermogravimetric analysis (TG) and temperature programmed oxidation analysis (TPO) were conducted. The effect of various dopants (Zr, Ce, Fe) and thermal aging were investigated. Also each sample was analyzed with X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) before and after each experiment. Our analysis show that, nano-sized Fe2O3 grants a temperature decrease in peak reaction temperature up to nearly 150ºC. Key words; Catalysis; Vehicle emissions; Autocatalysts; Nano iron oxide