Modeling and simulation for removal of volatile organic compounds VOCs in a catalytic converter

Abstract

This thesis concerns the modeling of automotive catalysts for the purpose to control the tail-pipe emissions. The research work focuses on the development of a mathematical model which is capable of simulating the various components present in exhaust gas after-treatment system during cold start. The model developed was a simple onedimensional model that could give fast and reasonably satisfactory results for conversion of the pollutants and simulates both the steady state conversion and the thermal transient conversion for the desired pollutants. Keeping this as the objective a transient one-dimensional model for predicting the complete combustion of individual VOC (methane, ethane, propane) has been formed for catalytic reactions and both non-catalytic and catalytic reactions. In this research work, the conversion of VOCs (methane, ethane, propane) with reaction temperature is analysed with numerical simulation using noble metal catalyst Pt/and#948;-Al2O3 and metal oxide catalyst CuO/and#948;- Al2O3. A comparison of the modeled result was made with the experimental data available in literature. The variation of solid temperature, gas concentration, and gas temperature with the axial distance of the catalytic converter was analyzed. False transient method is used for solving the quasi-steady-state system. The effect of CO emissions is neglected in this current work due to high VOCs emission rates at cold start and NOx engine-out emissions during cold start are also not considered because it has been reported that these emissions are very low for engine operating at low loads. newline