Effect of heating the catalytic converter on emission characteristic of gasoline automotive vehicles

Gasoline engines have been widely used as engineering machinery, automobile and shipping power equipment due to their excellent drivability and economy. At the same time, gasoline engines are major contributors to various types of air pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO), oxides of nitrogen (NO_x), and other harmful compounds. With the increasing concern of environment and more stringent government regulation on exhaust emissions, the reduction in engine emissions such as particulate matter and NO_x is a major research objective in engine development. In this article the effect of heating the catalytic converter on emission characteristic of automotive vehicles in its starting phase of combustion has been studied. In this work, the emission characteristic of hydrocarbons has been improved from 800 to 15 ppm, CO from 4 to 0.07 (V/V%) and NO_x from 1200 to 115 ppm.