PFI-TT: Scalable Thermal Spray Deposition of Surface-Engineered Washcoat Catalysts for Vehicle Emission Control Systems

这项创新技术转化伙伴关系（PFI-TT）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发一种排放控制原型产品，该产品采用新型表面工程催化剂来减少废气排放。清洁空气具有显著的社会效益。目前的解决方案包括各种移动和固定排放控制系统，以减少对环境和健康的不利影响。采用具有低温活性的支持促进和表面工程催化剂可以对汽车催化转化器和许多工业操作（包括发电厂，炼油厂和化工厂）以及表面涂层设施的工业应用产生全球性影响。参与本项目的人员包括一名研究生和一名本科生，他们将获得创新、技术转让和创业经验。该项目将连续热喷涂在线涂层技术与表面工程催化涂层材料相结合，使汽车催化转化器在150℃以下的污染物排放转化率达到90%。目前的排放控制催化剂在冷启动期间相对无效，因为冷启动温度低于催化剂的起燃温度，导致大量污染物排放到环境空气中。通过调整氧化铈（CeO2）载体的形状和表面缺陷，激活金属-载体界面，表面工程催化剂为关键中间体的形成提供了低能垒，打开了反应途径，并增加了低温下污染物气体转化的活性位点。该项目将利用连续热喷涂技术的优势，提供快速、高精度、可扩展的生产，并控制涂层厚度，相对于传统的湿化批量工艺，显著减少浪费，减少或消除有害有机溶剂，实现完全一体化的一步生产。该项目由创新伙伴关系（PFI）和促进竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to develop an emission control prototype product with novel, surface-engineered catalysts for exhaust abatement. Clean air represents a significant societal benefit. Various mobile and stationary emission control systems are included in current solutions to reduce adverse environmental and health impacts. The adoption of support-promoted and surface-engineered catalysts with low temperature activity can have a global impact for the industrial applications in automotive catalytic converters and many industrial operations including electrical power plants, refineries and chemical plants, and surface coating facilities. Personnel involved in this project includes one graduate student and undergraduate students, who will gain innovation, technology transfer, and entrepreneurship experience. This project combines a continuous thermal spray inline coating technology with surface-engineered catalytic washcoat materials to enable a 90% pollutant emission conversion rate below 150 C in automotive catalytic converters. Current emission control catalysts are relatively ineffective during the cold start period because the cold start temperature is lower than the light-off temperature of catalysts, leading to significant levels of pollutants emitted into the ambient air. By tuning the shapes and surface defects of cerium oxide (CeO2) supports and activating the metal-support interface, the surface-engineered catalysts offer low energy barriers for the formation of key intermediates and open reaction pathways as well as an increase in active sites for pollutant gas conversion at lower temperature. This project will apply the advantages of the continuous thermal spray technology to provide rapid, scalable production with high precision and controlled coating thickness, significantly reduced waste relative to conventional wet-chemical batch processes, reduction or elimination of harmful organic solvents, and fully integrated one-step production.This project is jointly funded by Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.