Analysis of Automotive Three-Way Catalyst

Introduction

In modern society, environmental countermeasures have evolved with the progress of motorization together with high economic growth. Automotive exhaust gas purification catalysts purify the toxic substances in exhaust gas to substances which are harmless to the human body. Responding to the increasingly stringent standards applied to exhaust gas in recent years, active research and development are being carried out in order to satisfy high requirements for purification performance, heat resistance, low temperature activity, and high temperature durability. The three-way catalyst (TWC) is an automotive catalyst system that was applied practically in the 1970s, and uses a combination of three elements to detoxify the harmful components in exhaust gas. Platinum (Pt) and palladium (Pd) oxidize HC (hydrocarbons) to H2O (water) and CO2 (carbon dioxide) and oxidize CO (carbon monoxide) to CO2, while Rh (rhodium) reduces NOx (nitrogen oxides) to N2 (nitrogen). This article introduces an example of analysis of a three-way catalyst using an EPMA-8050G EPMA™ electron probe microanalyzer.

August 1, 2020 GMT