2008 Spring Symposium

 
Robert J. Far­rauto
Research Fel­low
BASF Cat­a­lysts
Iselin, New Jer­sey
Bob.​Farrauto@​BASF.​com

Adjunct Pro­fes­sor, Earth and Envi­ron­men­tal Engi­neer­ing
Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty
City of New York

Abstract — The first auto­mo­bile cat­a­lysts, for gaso­line fueled inter­nal com­bus­tion engines(IC) were intro­duced in 1975. They were designed to facil­i­tate the reduc­tion of car­bon­monox­ide (CO) and unburned gaso­line derived hydro­car­bons (HC). The cat­a­lyst had tocon­tin­ue to func­tion with a approx­i­mate reduc­tion of 90% (rel­a­tive to an uncontrolled1970 vehi­cle) for 50,000 miles. The auto­mo­bile indus­try was skep­ti­cal since the suc­ces­sof the cat­a­lyst was depen­dent on the dri­ving and main­te­nance cycles of the aver­age­con­sumer. Since that time we have seen one of the most suc­cess­ful appli­ca­tions ofcatal­y­sis for clean­ing emis­sions from IC engines includ­ing gaso­line, diesel, two and 4cycle engines, pow­er plants, chem­i­cal plants, restau­rants, and wide body air­craft to namea few. Today we see the three way cat­a­lyst (TWC) as the heart of a closed loop enginecon­trol strat­e­gy suc­cess­ful­ly reduc­ing emis­sions of CO, HC and oxides of nitro­gen (NOx)to near zero for 150,000 miles. This has clear­ly been an achieve­ment of epic pro­por­tion­swith a pos­i­tive impact on the envi­ron­ment and the health of the world.

Now cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tists and engi­neers are faced with new chal­lenges for­con­trol­ling diesel engine emis­sions for trucks, bus­es and pas­sen­ger cars. As we approach2010 Fed­er­al Stan­dard emis­sions of CO, HC, NOx and par­tic­u­lates must approach zerolevels. This is still not the end because we are now see­ing the emer­gence ofen­vi­ron­men­tal emis­sion con­trol with the need to uti­lize more renew­able sources oftrans­porta­tion fuels. Catal­y­sis is already tak­ing on the chal­lenges of gen­er­at­ing alter­na­tivesources of ener­gy while pre­serv­ing the world’s envi­ron­ment.

Today’s talk will pro­vide a brief his­to­ry of some of the accom­plish­ments incon­trol­ling emis­sions from the gaso­line and diesel engines and point to alter­na­tivetech­nolo­gies under inves­ti­ga­tion includ­ing advanced NOx reduc­tion tech­nolo­gies, newengine con­cepts and the fuel cell as the end game in the hydro­gen econ­o­my.

Speaker’s Biog­ra­phy — Dr. Far­rauto is a Research Fel­low at the Cor­po­rate Research­Lab­o­ra­to­ries of BASF Cat­a­lysts (for­mer­ly Engel­hard) in Iselin, New Jer­sey, USA. His­ma­jor respon­si­bil­i­ties have includ­ed the devel­op­ment of advanced auto­mo­bile emis­sion­con­trol cat­a­lysts and cat­a­lysts for the chem­i­cal indus­try. He man­aged an Engel­hardresearch team that devel­oped and com­mer­cial­ized diesel oxi­da­tion cat­a­lysts for theEu­ro­pean, North Amer­i­can and Asian mar­kets for pas­sen­ger cars and heavy duty trucks.Currently he man­ages a research team devel­op­ing new cat­a­lyst tech­nol­o­gy for the­hy­dro­gen econ­o­my includ­ing hydro­gen refu­el­ing sta­tions and fuel cells for stationary,portable pow­er and vehic­u­lar appli­ca­tions. He is also Adjunct Pro­fes­sor in the Earth andEn­vi­ron­men­tal Engi­neer­ing Depart­ment of Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, in the City of NewYork where he teach­es course in catal­y­sis.