Thermal Imaging Study of Gold Catalysts for Carbon Monoxide Neutralization in Exhaust Gases of Automotive Engines

The paper discusses some key issues related to the use of automotive catalysts, which are aimed at purifying the exhaust gases of internal combustion engines from carbon monoxide at a low starting temperature. It is shown that the level of catalytic activity of solid-state systems such as Al2O3+Au can be successfully identified by using modern high-performance matrix thermal imaging (infrared thermography) for this purpose. There are results of a thermal imaging study of -Al2O3+Au granular samples with a highly developed inner surface of the carrier on which gold nanoparticles are deposited, which serve to accelerate the oxidation reaction of CO to CO2. Since the first stage of heterogeneous catalysis in such a task is the adsorption of exhaust gas molecules on the contact surface with noble metal nanoparticles, the experiment also clearly showed that the thermal imaging method can serve as a highly informative diagnostic tool capable of representing the features of sorption processes in solid-state structures. The informative value of thermal imaging testing increases many times when using multicellular libraries of experimental samples. Examples of two different types of reactors combined with matrix thermal imaging technology are given, allowing the study of heterogeneous catalytic systems in different dynamic modes. Using the thermal imaging method, the quantitative difference is clearly presented between the kinetics of sorption and catalytic processes occurring sequentially in -Al2O3+Au system at low (room) temperature. It is shown that infrared thermography of a new generation can serve as a highly informative tool for the study of catalytic systems used together with internal combustion engines in road transport.