Development of nanofiber based diesel soot filtration technology

最近的大众清洁柴油丑闻证明，柴油发动机排放控制的研发对包括加拿大在内的世界各国都是紧迫和重要的。柴油机排放的烟尘是一种复杂的气溶胶，主要含有碳质颗粒和微量的无机物和其他被吸附的物质。烟尘颗粒的范围从10到100秒纳米。作为一种与呼吸系统和心血管疾病以及肺癌相关的主要空气污染物，煤烟每年导致全球数百万人过早死亡。因此，全球出台了越来越严格的法规来控制柴油发动机的碳烟排放，在过去的几年里，柴油碳烟减排技术的研究受到了极大的关注。 在此基础上，提出了一种基于纳米纤维的CeO2基催化剂的柴油机微粒过滤技术。采用过滤和氧化法控制烟尘排放，能耗低、效率高，具有较高的经济效益。在三年的研发过程中，将通过实验室实验来研究相关的基础知识，并将使用真实的柴油发动机尾气来测试带有纳米纤维催化剂的柴油颗粒过滤器原型的性能。 拟议的研究将由一个多学科的专家团队进行，他们在清洁空气技术、纳米技术、机械工程和化学工程方面具有互补的专业知识。1名博士和3名本科生将通过这项拟议的研究项目进行培训。他们将加入加拿大劳动力大军，为新知识和/或清洁技术行业的发展做出贡献。 这项拟议的研究对加拿大的经济和环境具有重要意义。即将开发的清洁空气技术具有立即商业化的潜力。导致高性价比柴油烟尘排放控制的研发扩大了产业赞助商的商业市场，对公众来说，这将导致运输业的空气污染物排放大幅减少，改善加拿大的空气质量和公众健康。

As evidenced by the most recent Volkswagen clean diesel scandal, R&D in diesel engine emission control is urgent and important to the world, including Canada. Soot from diesel engines is a complex aerosol containing mainly carbonaceous particles with trace amounts of inorganic material and other adsorbed species. Soot particles range from 10 to 100s nanometers. As a major air pollutant that is associated with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases as well as lung cancers, soot is responsible for millions of premature death annually around the world. As a result, increasingly stricter legislations have been published globally to control soot emissions from diesel engines and research in diesel soot abatement technology has received much interest over the last few years. Following the state-of-the-art, it is proposed to develop a diesel particulate filtration technology using CeO2-based catalysts in nanofiber form. It is featured with cost-effectiveness owing to the low energy consumption and relatively high efficiency for soot emission control by filtration and oxidation. Over the three years of R&D, the associated basics will be investigated by laboratory experiments and the performance of the prototype diesel particulate filter with nanofibrous catalyst will be tested using a real diesel engine exhaust. The proposed research will be conducted by a multidisciplinary team of experts with complimentary expertise in clean air technology, nanotechnology, mechanical engineering, and chemical engineering. One PhD and 3 undergraduate students will be trained through this proposed research project. They will join the Canadian workforce contributing to the advance of new knowledge and/or clean technology industry. This proposed research is important to the economy and environment of Canada. The clean air technology to be developed has a potential of immediate commercialization. R&D leading to cost-effective diesel soot emission control expand the business market of the industrial sponsor, and for the public, it will result in a great reduction in air pollutant emissions from the transport industry, improving Canada's air quality and public health.