Clean Air and Emission Control

Environmental pollution has been a global matter of concern for many years, leading to progressively stricter regulations. Particularly, air contamination by emitted NOx, CO, CO2, CH4, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), NH3 and particulate matter is regarded as a major problem of our society with harmful effects on human health and environment. In addition to minimizing the emissions directly at the source, the catalytic aftertreatment of the emitted pollutants is regarded as one of the most promising approaches. This strategy applies to both, mobile and stationary emission sources from industry to transportation and even household.

To comply with the more stringent emission laws a continuous development of new and improved generation of exhaust gas aftertreatment catalysts is required. In this context, our group is conducting numerous studies on different classes of catalysts applied in the aftertreatment system of energy conversion processes, such as natural gas combustion as well as for reducing household emissions. By fundamental understanding of catalyst structural and mechanistic aspects, we aim at improving its efficiency and durability. For example, we were able to significantly enhance the catalytic performance by directly acting on the noble metal particle size in a Pt-CeO2-based catalyst. In collaboration with our industrial partners, we observed that short reducing pulses lead to a slight increase of Pt particles at mild temperature, which has a tremendous effect on the catalyst activity. Furthermore, we designed Pd/CeO2 catalyst on a nanometer scale to rationally tailor the threshold of cluster formation in noble metal-ceria catalysts by using CeO2 nano islands, which are finely distributed on Al2O3 support. The spatial separation of CeO2 entities prevents highly active Pd clusters from redispersion and strong sintering during CO oxidation reaction.

For more details, have a look at the Center for Emission Control Karlsruhe with Prof. Olaf Deutschmann as well as the homepage of our collaborative research center TrackAct, in which over 25 groups investigate the catalytic active centers in emission control catalysts on different length scales.

 
Optimizing the Pd surface concentration on ceria for an efficient use of the noble metal.
Concept of facilitating Pd cluster formation using ceria nanoislands.
Group Leader

Dr. Maria Casapu
ITCP

Available positions for students

 
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Contact Dr. Maria Casapu