PFI-RP: Multifunctional Nanoarray Adsorbers for Low Temperature Automotive Emission Control

University Of Connecticut, Storrs CT

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) project are manyfold. First, if successful, it will provide a new class of materials to meet needs for diesel emission, impacting the transportation industry. The global market of heavy duty diesel catalysts for on-road trucks is projected to reach $2.6 billion in 2020. The product and technology are expected to help the US sustain its leadership in the field of low-temperature emission control, supporting a cleaner environment, through reduced use of certain metals, and enhancing economic competitiveness through export opportunities. The integration of research and product development demonstrated in this university-industry partnership program will form an important model and foundation to help pursue a sustained industrial-university research collaboration ecosystem. The broad application of this new technology is expected to produce new jobs and significant economic impact. An important outcome of this partnership project is the intensive training of students through the organic integration of academic research, technology transfer, and entrepreneurship. The team plans to use this unique partnership model to build a pipeline to demonstrate to student and postdoctoral researchers, especially women and under-represented groups, how frontier research can be directly transferred to industry for commercialization. The proposed project intends to develop a high-efficiency, durable, and low-cost multifunctional adsorbers for low temperature and cold-start diesel emission control. Such multifunctional adsorbers combine the functions of low temperature nanoarray diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) and low temperature adsorbers (LTA), forming a total solution at temperatures as low as 100 degrees Celsius. However, the DOCs that can work efficiently at temperatures below 200 degrees Celsius are not available in the current market, and are in urgent demand. In this project, surrounding the proposed university-industry partnership, the team will integrate the nanoarray DOCs with LTAs as a new class of multifunctional adsorbers. Scalable continuous hydrothermal and other processes at temperatures below 200 degrees Celsius will be used to enable the cost-effective fabrication of large scale stable multilayer adsorbers. The full-size adsorbers will be processed and validated for emission control through both lab and simulated field tests, with high catalytic activity at low temperature, robustness, and low materials usage. 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.