Impact of Lubricant Additives on thePhysicochemical Properties and Activity of Three‐Way Catalysts

As alternative lubricant anti‐wear additives are sought to reduce friction and improve overall fuel economy, it is important that these additives are also compatible with current emissions control catalysts. In the present work, an oil‐miscible phosphorous‐containing ionic liquid (IL), trihexyltetradecylphosphonium bis(2‐ethylhexyl) phosphate ([P66614][DEHP]), is evaluated for its impact on three‐way catalysts (TWC) and benchmarked against the industry standard zinc‐dialkyl‐dithio‐phosphate (ZDDP). The TWCs are aged in different scenarios: neat gasoline (no‐additive, or NA), gasoline+ZDDP, and gasoline+IL. The aged samples, along with the as‐received TWC, are characterized through various analytical techniques including catalyst reactivity evaluation in a bench‐flow reactor. The temperatures of 50% conversion (T50) for the ZDDP‐aged TWCs increased by 30, 24, and 25 °C for NO, CO, and C3H6, respectively, compared to the no‐additive case. Although the IL‐aged TWC also increased in T50 for CO and C3H6, it was notably less than ZDDP, 7 and 9 °C, respectively. Additionally, the IL‐aged samples had higher water‐gas‐shift reactivity and oxygen storage capacity than the ZDDP‐aged TWC. Characterization of the aged samples indicated the predominant presence of CePO4 in the ZDDP‐aged TWC aged by ZDDP, while its formation was retarded in the case of IL where higher levels of AlPO4 is observed. Thus, results in this work indicate that the phosphonium‐phosphate IL potentially has less adverse impact on TWC than ZDDP.