“Development of NEXT GENeration cost efficient automotive CATalysts” (NEXTGENCAT) project has finished positively its trajectory/development last 29th of January in University of Lille installations, with the last meeting of this project and a workshop about catalytic materials for automotive sector. The main objective of that last meeting was to make a brainstorming session discussing final results of new catalytic compositions developed in the project, by total or partial replacement of platinum group metal (PGMs) with transition metals.
The final objective of the project has been achieved successfully thanks to consortiums’ complementary capacities and experience, managing positive results for the new nano-structured catalysts not only in relation to the efficient conversion of pollutants into innocuous compounds, but also with very favourable results of selected compositions in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) where the new species have been compared with traditional compositions. Precisely, a variety of the new efficient catalytic alternatives have been developed including transition metal nanoparticles (Cu, Ni, Co, Fe, etc) in different porous supports, instead of including critical metals. In this way, thanks to the variety of developed catalysts and their effectiveness, industrial production has been made of finally selected catalysts where their functionality could be validated making real demonstrations in cars with different cylinder capacity during 80.000Km.
Concretely, after four years of project, Lurederra Technological Centre has completed diverse technical activities emphasising the development and production of active catalysts and advanced catalytic promoters based on simple and mixed nanoparticles; suitable dispersion of nanocatalysts, preparation of the washcoat as well as impregnation and fixation over ceramic test pieces of real monoliths. On the other hand, Tecnología Navarra de Nanoproductos SL (TECNAN) was the main responsible for the upscaling of the selected catalysts thanks to its highly versatile and scalable pyrolytic technology (FSP), making possible a direct implementation in the market after the accomplishment of the project.
For more information, please visit www.nextgencat.eu
