I am sure you must have heard about Catalytic Converters but what actually are they and how do they work? The article is an attempt to make you understand the functioning and utility of the Catalytic converters or popularly known as "Cats" or "Cat-cons".Our concern about the Global warming and increasing atmospheric pollution due to automobiles expelling pollutants as toxic gases from their exhausts leads us towards the solution- Catalytic Converters. The cat-cons are one of the efficient gadgets used against pollution by the engines of our vehicles.
The Catalytic converter is a set of steel box fitted generally in between the exhaust bend and the expansion chamber. One can spot a catalytic converter in a modern motorcycle or a scooter as a rectangular box or cylindrical attachment/protrusion in the exhaust pipe.
Inside the catalytic converter there is honeycomb shaped structure made by ceramic and are coated by "Catalysts" like Platinum or metal like Palladium or Rhodium. These metals are called "Catalysts" as due to their presence the molecules of toxic gasses like Carbon-mono-oxide and Nitrogen Oxide splits into inert and non hazardous gas particles like Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide and Water.The character of a Catalyst is, that it never reacts with the reagent and nor it changes its own form. Virtually a catalyst is something that boosts the reaction without directly undergoing into the process but its sheer presence speeds up the whole process. Therefore at the Catalytic converter, the catalyst like Platinum speeds up the process of converting the toxic molecules into harmless atoms, which generally never get a chance to split into simpler form and expelled out as it is from the exhaust in the absence of Catalytic converter.
The cat-cons are very efficient and cost effective method of pollution control from the automobiles but they have few limitations as well:
- The Cat-cons require very high temperature to perform, therefore they are virtually ineffective when you just start your engine in cold state. To overcome this drawback of catalytic converters they are normally placed close to the engine so that the hot gases instantly takes the temperature of Cat-cons to the optimum level.
- The Un-leaded fuel poisons the catalysts and therefore disable them permanently and resulting failure of the catalytic converter on the whole.
The efficiency of Catalytic converter can be understood by the data obtained from the machines monitoring the level of pollutants with and without Cat-cons. It is observed that the levels of pollutants like Hydrocarbons, Carbon monoxide and Nitrogen Oxides are reduced more than 50% in the automobiles using catalytic converters.
In Indian perspective the importance of Catalytic converters is even more as being a fastest growing economy and densely populated country, we need to address the problem of environmental pollution with more responsibility.
By: Farhan Kashif