Catalytic Converters
Notice when a vehicle drives by nowadays, that it is so much quieter than those loud oldies that pour out the blue smoke. Ever wonder just what is underneath a vehicle that makes the new ones so much cleaner. It is called a catalytic converter. The main function of a catalytic converter is to decrease pollution emitted from a vehicles exhaust. The concept behind this is to add a catalyst and force a reaction between the automobile's exhaust and oxygen in the converter. To see just how this happens let's look inside of a catalytic converter. A catalytic converter is made up mainly of a mufflerlike chamber which contains porous, heat-resistant materials coated with either platinum or palladium. These materials are known as catalysts. A catalyst is an element which although causing a reaction to occur, does not change at all during the reaction. This is the idea behind a catalytic converter. The carbon monoxide gas and hydrocarbons emitted from the engine will travel along the exhaust system until they reach they catalytic converter. There it comes into contact with the described catalyst. This forces a reaction between the carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons with the oxygen inside the converter creating products of carbon dioxide and water vapor. The reaction which occurs inside the converter is as follows:
The main compounds involved are carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons
(compounds of hydrogen and carbon), as well as oxygen. When these three are combined with the provided catalyst, a reaction occurs as above. During the reaction the oxygen splits apart the carbon monoxide and the hydrocarbons and allows them to combine with its elements forming the aforementioned products.
The catalytic converter first made an appearance in vehicles in 1975.
The government of the United States of America had established a law controlling auto emissions. There was one minor detail that was outlined in the use of a catalytic converter, however. There must only be the use of lead-free gasoline.
The reasoning behind this was that if a leaded gasoline was used the lead would cover the platinum and palladium pellets rendering them ineffective and thereby ceasing the reaction to exist. Phosphorus had much of the same effect on the pellets so the gasoline must contain minimal amounts of it as well.
A catalytic converter can be located in every new vehicle today, unless the vehicle runs on diesel fuel. In case you were interested in finding the catalytic converter nearest you, you may want to take a look under the nearest vehicle. It looks like the muffler only it is a little bit larger and more to
There is some sort of fictional imagery being represented here. Although you can’t physically see music being poured into the room, one of your other 5 senses is being utilized, which is your sound. There is also figurative language being implied, where the “sound of blues” can be considered as unanimate and is being compared to a pourable
1.Intake: The intake valve opens allowing fresh oxygen rich air mixed with fuel to enter the cylinder.
chain. The use of lead in gasoline was phased out in '73 which caused lead
stick to a target, burn longer, and have a better range. The formula invented in 1942 by Dr. Louis
In the future the automotive industries will need alternative fuel sources, in turn that means they will need alternative engines in their automobiles. The engines found in their cars will have to be changed to fit the new fuels being made. They have many directions in which they can go concerning engine types and fuel types.
Lead, simply put, is an element found in the earth’s crust. It is slightly soluble in water and is transported mainly through the atmosphere (Harte et al. 1991). The human usage of lead dates back to five- thousand years ago when it was discovered that small quantities of silver could be extracted from lead ore (Harte et al. 1991). The ancient civilizations of Phoenicia, Egypt, Greece, India, and China used lead for vessels, roofs, water ducts, utensils, ornaments, and weights (Harte et al. 1991). Romans used lead acetate as an artificial sweetener in their drinks. Lead acetate, known as sugar of lead, would sweeten a vintage without causing further fermentation, which would have occurred with the addition of sweeteners like honey (Le Courteur and Burreson 2003). The Romans also used lead pipes for plumbing their homes with water. The Latin name for lead is Plumbum (like the word plumbing) hence the symbol Pb on the periodic table (August 1998). Only the rich Romans had access to water in their homes through lead pipes. Lead poisoning from th...
Murray, Charles J. "Automakers Find New Ways To Boost Efficiency." Design News 66.2 (2011): 28-32. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Nov. 2011.
The Volkswagen emissions scandal is a series of choices made by the company and the people employed by Volkswagen to install a "cheat" button to alter the amount of emissions produced only under testing situations. Ordinarily, all vehicles on the road that run off of gasoline have a set about of CO2 and other harmful emissions produced by the burning of gasoline. Violation of these rules can result in fines and recalls. Due to an increased attention on car companies to fight global warming and air pollution a number of emissions have lowered in the over the year for tighter regulation on the amount of CO2 produced. Consequently, this reduction in the amount of CO2 produced is the source of the scandal. This change may come across as minor,
engines, axels and the like - sits not in Detroit, Tokyo or Stuttgart, but in the
In this report I will explain the fuel systems in an automobile. I will cover different parts and how they work. First thing to do is explain how the fuel system works. The purpose of the fuel system is to store and supply fuel to the cylinder chamber where it can be mixed with air then vaporized and burned to produce energy. The fuel, which can be either gas or diesel is stored in a fuel tank. A fuel pump draws the fuel from the gas tank through lines and brings it through a fuel filter. Next it goes to either a carburetor or fuel injector and then delivered to the cylinder chamber for combustion.
Relevance: Air pollution is something that everyone should be concern, especially if we’re advancing a lot in technology, especially in vehicles and the importance of our air or the environment.
Roman slaves extracted and prepared the lead, describes a disease among the slaves that was clearly lead poisoning. Because of their potential toxicity, lead water pipes are no longer being installed. The greatest single use of lead metal today is in the plates of storage batteries for automobiles. The protective oxidation layer formed by lead in contact with such substances as air, sulfuric acid, and fluorine makes it highly resistant to corrosion. For this reason, lead has been used to make drainage pipes and lead chambers in sulfuric acid factories.
The general petrol, more commonly known as gasoline, is the most readily available source of power for one's car today. This is because gasoline is generally cheap and readily available. Gasoline is defined by Poltcor as a "petroleum-derived liquid mixture consisting mostly of aliphatic hydrocarbons and enhanced with aromatic hydrocarbons toluene, benzene or iso-octane to increase octane ratings, primarily used as fuel in internal combustion engines" (Poltcor 3). Most automobiles rely on this type of gasoline today. At gas stations, the general grades available are 87, 89, and 93. Each of the numbers represents the quality of the gasoline, 87 being the lowest, usually named Regular and 93 being the highest, usually named Supreme. Generally, the gas prices in the U.S. are cheaper than overseas. However, the gas price has been rising over past few years because of some issues with the Middle East. Even with this problem in the Middle East increasing the gas price regularly, the U.S. maintains its ranking as one of the cheapest places to get petrol, or gasoline. Although gasoline is cheap, it is demanded of every person to have an automobile and since automobiles rely on gasoline, the gasoline distributors have the advantage that the public is willing to pay high prices for gasoline, if it's the cheapest around.
Automobiles release the unburnt carbon monoxide due to which ultraviolet rays got a way to enter into an atmosphere.
These groups introduced the rule that US mid size vehicles must list the entire components within and materials type and mass must also be identified. In order to justify the government reaction, the necessary data has been taken for clarity, and tangible control for the effect of emission on the environment is also underway. It is clear that the US consumption of polluting substances like lead, platinum and rubber has dropped due to improvements in the environmental friendliness of auto manufacturing, since these materials have been in use for cars since the 1950s.