Date of Award

Fall 1996

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Applied Chemistry - (M.S.)

Department

Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Environmental Science

First Advisor

Robert Pfeffer

Second Advisor

Henry Shaw

Third Advisor

Richard B. Trattner

Abstract

Air pollution from mobile sources is an increasingly serious problem throughout most of the industrialized would. Diesel powered vehicles, because of their higher thermal efficiency, tend to emit less carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons than gasoline vehicles, but emit significant quantities of NOx. Therefore, it is essential to develop improved emission control equipment in diesel engines. A fixed bed catalytic reactor was used to study the decomposition of NO and the reduction of NO to N2 by different reductants that can be found in diesel exhaust, such as hydrocarbons, CO and elemental carbon over different catalysts. The effect of space velocity, feed concentrations, reaction temperature and catalyst deactivation were also investigated. A dual detector gas chromatograph equipped with a thermal conductivity and a flame ionization detection, a gas chromatograph with thermal conductivity detector and a chemiluminescent NO/NOx analyzer were used for quantitative analysis of feed and product streams.

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