Numerical Simulation of Nitrous Oxide and Carbon Monoxide SharonWangAbatement in the Catalytic Converter

Catalytic converters are one of the effective devices to reduce air pollution by motor vehicles by transforming nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide in the exhaust to relatively harmless nitrogen and carbon dioxide respectively. However, due to the presence of precious group metals such as platinum, rhodium and palladium as catalysts, the cost of the catalytic converter is relatively high. Furthermore, the catalysts’ activation and deactivation levels is highly dependent on temperature, hence the design of catalytic converter in the vehicle exhaust system is not easy. The objective of this study is to carry out simulation via CFD code FLUENT 6.0, on catalytic converter. CFD modeling module was conducted to predict the exhaust gas temperature at 10cm, 30cm, 50cm, 80cm and 110cm from the engine outlet to determine the best position of catalytic converter in the exhaust system. Another CFD modeling module was done to simulate the surface reactions on a single channel of a catalytic converter. The simulation result was then verified via experimental data published in the literature. KeywordsCatalytic converter; Natural gas vehicle; Nitrogen monoxide; Carbon monoxide; Abatement; CFD.