New catalyst can reduce pollution from diesel vehicles

New York : Scientists have developed a catalyst that can curb emissions of nitrogen oxides from diesel-powered vehicles, an advance that may help reduce air pollution and smog. Nitrogen oxides (NOx) is a priority air pollutant that is a key ingredient in smog. "Diesel engines power virtually all heavy-duty trucks, and NOx emissions control remains one of the key challenges facing manufacturers and operators," researchers said.

The team focused on copper-exchanged zeolites, a particular class of catalysts used to promote the conversion of NOx into environmentally benign nitrogen gas. These catalysts begin functioning at temperatures too high to capture a large fraction of the NOx produced, researchers said.

They discovered the key chemical step that limits the performance of these catalysts at low temperature. Researchers proved that this pairing was indeed happening during one step in the overall catalytic process. They were able to combine the experiments and computations to quantify the pairing and its influence on NOx removal.