Activated carbon automotive applications

The generation of au pollutants, ineluding VOC s, from automotive vehieles was identified to eome from two prineipal sourees vehiele exhaust emissions, and fuel system evaporative emissions [4], Evaporative emissions are defmed as the automotive fuel vapors generated and released from the vehiele s fuel system due to the interactions of the speeific fuel in use, the fuel system characteristics, and environmental factors. The sources of the evaporative emissions are discussed below and, as presented m the remainder of this chapter, control of these evaporative emissions are the focus of the application of activated carbon technology in automotive systems. 

Properties of activated carbons produced by Westvaco for automotive applications are presented in Table 5. 

The current requirements have led to the development of pellet shaped activated carbon products specifically for automotive applications. These pellets are typically generated as chemically activated, wood-based carbons. 

Activated Carbon for Process Water Treatment Activated Carbon from CPL Carbon Link - Activated carbon from CPL Carbon Link for liquid and gas phase purification by adsorption. Activated carbons for all applications including chemical, water, air, solvent recovery, gold recovery, food, automotive, industrial, catalysis.. http //www.activated-carbon.com. 

Applications of activated carbons are discussed in Chapters 8-10, including their use in the automotive arena as evaporative loss emission traps (Chapter 8), and in vehicle natural gas storage tanks (Chapter 9). The use of evaporative loss emission traps has been federally mandated in the U.S. and Europe. Consequently, a significant effort has been expended to develop a carbon adsorbent properly optimized for evaporative loss control, and to design the on board vapor collection and disposal system. The manufacture of activated carbons, and their preferred characteristics for fuel emissions control are discussed in Chapter 8, along with the essential features of a vehicle evaporative loss emission control system. 

In another report, James and Kalinoski [4] performed an estimation of the costs for a direct hydrogen fuel cell system used in automotive applications. The assumed system consisted of an 80 kW system with four fuel cell stacks, each with 93 active cells this represents around 400 MEAs (i.e., 800 DLs) per system. The study was performed assuming that the DL material used for both the anode and cathode sides would be carbon fiber paper with an MPL. In fact, the cost estimate was based on SGL Carbon prices for its DLs with an approximate CEP value of around US 12 m for 500,000 systems per year. Based on this report, the overall value of the DLs (with MPL) is around US 42.98 per kilowatt (for current technology and 1,000 systems per year) and 3.27 per kilowatt (for 2015 technology and 500,000 systems per year). Figure 4.2 shows the cost component distribution for this 80 kW fuel cell system. In conclusion, the diffusion layer materials used for fuel cells not only have to comply with all the technical requirements that different fuel cell systems require, but also have to be cost effective. 

Johnson, P.J., Setsuda, D. J., and Williams, R.S. Activated carbon for automotive application. In Carbon Materials for Advanced Technologies, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Pergamon, 1999 235. 

It has been reported in the course of this review that a recent study of the targets of a costless electrocatalyst to replace Pt in automotive applications requires that such non-noble metal catalysts have an activity no less than 1/lOth of the current industrial Pt activity under equivalent conditions. This requires mainly a sizeable increase in the site density (defined as catalytic sites/cm in the electro-catalytic layer) of the non-noble metal catalysts. A knowledge of the molecular structure of the catalytic site for the electrochemical reduction of oxygen in acid medium is, therefore, essential in order to increase the site density on the carbon support for those catalysts. The long-term stabilities of the same catalysts under current industrial conditions are yet to be demonstrated, as weU. 

Gas-phase applications of activated carbon in the USA are mainly concentrated towards granular carbons. Total consumption in 1994 accounted for somewhat <20% of the total market. The main applications are air purification (it includes industrial gas purification), solvent vapor recovery, automotive evaporation control systems, and others, of which the two first constitute the main share of the total. 

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