14 DAY TRIAL // According to a group of researchers, it may be that replacing the expensive platinum catalyst currently used in diesel engines to reduce exhaust fumes would lead to cheaper and more efficient engines. That is to say, the platinum catalyst, which is regularly used in filters, could make way for a new generation of materials that would ensure both lower prices and higher efficiency in cleaning. A group of investigators at General Motors, led by expert Wei Li, demonstrated recently that a simple material could be used to take on platinum's role, helping automobile manufacturers maintain low car costs, while at the same time respecting increasingly-tougher emission regulation standards.
While working at the GM research and development labs in Warren, Michigan, Li and his group determined that, in the case of lean-burn combustion engines, cleaning up exhausts was performed a lot more effectively by using the common mineral more known as perovskite. They say that the material needs to be fortified with the metals strontium and palladium beforehand, but add that the resulting compound beats platinum at the job. This is very important considering that lean-burn engines tend to be outfitted on diesel-powered cars, which are more efficient, but also more expensive than cars burning gas. Replacing platinum could lower their prices, and attract more people.
“We are now working on tests with real vehicles. It's hard to predict when this will make it into commercial production – but perhaps in a few years. A large part of the premium on a diesel car is the cost of the system for cleaning its exhaust emissions,” Li says. Details of the team's innovation appear in the latest issue of the esteemed publication Science, and GM has already applied for a provisional patent to the new material. But the real goal for this investigation is not necessarily to make more people buy diesel cars, but to provide the necessary conditions so that manufacturers start using lean-burn engines in gas-powered cars.
This would make them more capable of respecting new legislation against excessive carbon emissions. “I have not seen anything else with such good oxidation using a non-noble metal [platinum] catalyst,” says of the new results expert Louise Olsson. She is based at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, and is also actively involved in catalyst research. “I worked on these types of catalysts 13 years ago and I couldn't get these results. How far it can be pushed, I don't know,” adds Umicore catalyst expert Owen Bailey, quoted by Nature News.