THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 4, 1996 TAG: 9603020081
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: TECH TRACK
GADGETS AND GIZMOS FOR THE NEXT CENTURY
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
AS YOU HUDDLE around the family hearth anxious for spring, summer pollution alerts seem utter fantasy. But July and August are inevitable. And with hot weather comes a fossil-fuels-generated, atmospheric witches' brew popularly known as smog.
Engelhard Corp. of Iselin, N.J., has come up with a coating that, applied to a car's radiator, scarfs up some of the lung-searing nasties. The so-called PremAir catalyst, applied as a thick black paint, breaks down the pollutant ozone, converting it to pure oxygen.
The idea behind the advance is the same as that employed in a car's catalytic converter. There, exhaust emissions are reduced by chemical interactions with the metals from which the catalyst is made.
PremAir's premise is basically the same. The difference is that ozone-laden, ambient air is cleansed as it flows over and through a car's treated radiator.
Recently concluded tests done with cars supplied by Ford, however, revealed that PremAir doesn't work quite as spectacularly as computer modeling predicted it would.
The coating does indeed help decompose ozone (the low-level kind that causes health problems, not the high-in-the-sky kind that shields the planet from harmful solar radiation). But in its current formulation, without expensive auto retrofits, PremAir doesn't make large-scale air cleaning practical.
According to Engelhard spokesperson Denise Lenci, the primary reason is that under actual driving conditions, little ozone actually comes in contact with radiators. That which does is converted instantly; the effect is even more pronounced when cars are idling.
Engelhard still hopes to commercialize the paint-on catalyst within two years. One strong market should be perpetually smoggy Southern California, where even minuscule improvements in ozone destruction could be multiplied by the sheer numbers of vehicles clogging freeways.
And the firm is exploring ways to apply PremAir to commercial and residential air conditioning units.
If the paint-on catalyst ever does become available for cars, Lenci estimates a cost of $50 for materials, and less than that for application. She contends the PremAir formulation should have a useful lifetime of at least 100,000 miles. MEMO: ``Tech Track'' appears every Monday in the Daily Break. Readers with
ideas for future columns are invited to contact staff science and
technology writer James Schultz at (804) 446-2599, or via e-mail at
schultz(AT)infi.net
ILLUSTRATION: JOHN EARLE
The Virginian-Pilot
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