Catalytic converters: source of pollution?

UPI ^ | 12/5/2005

[ncountylee]

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 5 (UPI) -- Massachusetts scientists say toxic metals from automotive catalytic converters have been detected for the first time in U.S. urban air.

The research was conducted by Swedish scientists working in collaboration with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The scientists found high concentrations of platinum, palladium, rhodium and osmium in air over the Boston metropolitan area. Although the particles are not yet considered a serious health risk, evidence suggests they potentially could pose a future danger as worldwide car sales increase from an estimated 50 million in 2000 to more than 140 million in 2050.

Finding ways to "stabilize" those metal particles within the converters "should be a priority to limit their potential impact," says lead researcher Sebastien Rauch of Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg, Sweden. Scientists have also detected elevated concentrations of the elements in Europe, Japan, Australia, Ghana, China and Greenland.

Catalytic converters reduce emissions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants.

The study is to appear in the Dec. 15 issue of the American Chemical Society's journal, Environmental Science and Technology.

[ncountylee]

Trouble in global warming land.

[Glenn]

from an estimated 50 million in 2000 to more than 140 million in 2050.

I'll be long dead, but I'm going to encourage my grandchildren to invest in risky creative parking schemes.

[Vaquero]

could be Teddy just cut one.

[Past Your Eyes]

I put one of those cadillac converters on my car but it's still an Escort. I should have known it wouldn't work.

[Nephi]

Internal combustion engines are meant to run on vapor, but fuel injection systems (and even carburetors) are liquid metering systems. So, catalytic converters are a clumsy effort to clean up unburned fuel. The efficient approach would be to vaporize the fuel before it enters the engine. Kind of like how your liquid propane turns to gas before it is burned in your bbq grill.

If the American public knew what the oil companies, car companies and government (who has a conflict of interest in taxes per gallon of gas vs. fuel economy) know about fuel vaporization there would be a revolution.

[Techster]

Check out this idea for better fuel burn in the internal combustion engine.

http://somender-singh.com/

[fireforeffect]

For years I drove a 1971 Chevy pickup (Straight 6, standard shift) and it ALWAYS passed the new car emissions test. If course I did a partial tune-up every month.

Modern vehicles are computer controlled. They stay in tune longer.

[doc30]

This is a news article, not a scientific paper so it lacks crucial details. It mentions that materials from catalytic converters have been detected. Does this mean that modern techniques can now detect trace amounts of these materials that have always been there because detection limits have been improved. Or has the concentration of these materials increased to where they are now detectable? Or is this just spin to fuek the enviro-wacko's goal of eliminating the personal automobile?

[CPOSharky]

As science's ability to measure particulate concentration gets better and better there will be more of these kind of "discoveries."

(Humans exhale one molecule of Plutonium every year. Need more money for further research.)

[Williams]

I'm still waiting for someone to question why airbags were allowed to turn the front seats of our cars into death machines for children and adults under a certain height and weight. Catalytic converters will have to wait in line.

[The Great RJ]

Wait until we have millions of hybrid vehicles on the road and have a few involved in accidents. Imagine passengers or more likely rescuers being electrocuted or having an accident that ruptures the trunk load of batteries creating a major hazardous spill. We already have a serious pollution problem from MTBE that government clean air policies mandated be added to gasoline.

Fear nothing more than the government trying to fix things.

[50sDad]

Look, I hate to add fuel to the fire, but those EnviroWhackos were the ones that made us put that alphabet-soup attitive in our gas (HTML? BTHM?) and it turns out THAT is seeping into the water table and is worse for you than airborn pollution.

We need to declare a "Manhatten Project" on fusion power, DUMP money into it, and tell the A-rabs to go pound sand. (And a bio-engineered bug that eats THEIR oil, would be good as well.)