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Government of Canada Invests in Innovative R&D Projects with Canadian Auto Industry
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No single invention has done more to reduce toxic auto emissions than the arrival of the catalytic converter in the 1970s. Some 40 years later, a small Ontario company is preparing to hit the market with a revolutionary multi chamber catalytic converter (MCCC) that not only produces an even cleaner exhaust but also boosts gas mileage, and is less expensive to manufacture.
"We've proven the technology works for gas engines and we now have a commercial product that our customers are doing final validation testing on," says, Stefano Plati, of Woodbridge-based Vida Holdings Corp. "We're aiming to have this technology in vehicles by 2015."
After working with Dr. Robert Hayes to initially develop the MCCC, Vida is now adapting the technology for diesel engines. Automotive Partnership Canada (APC) is contributing $976,000 to this new three-year project.
"We've already got great preliminary results for the diesel oxidation catalyst, and it will take maybe another year to optimize," says lead researcher Dr. Robert Hayes, a chemical engineer at the University of Alberta. "Once we can show customers the effect they want, they can start their own in-house testing right away. The goal is to get this commercialized as fast as possible."
The earlier APC project tested three MCCC prototypes on five different sizes of gasoline powered vehicles, from small cars to heavy duty trucks. The results consistently showed it was possible to reduce the use of expensive catalyst metals by up to 40 percent and yet still achieve significant reductions in carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen—the most difficult and costly pollutant to remove. Unexpectedly, the technology also improved gas mileage by 5-15 percent.
The research team expects to achieve even better results with catalytic converters for diesel engines, which use about 10 times more platinum and palladium than those for gasoline engines. The end result will be a superior product that costs less than anything on the market today.
"Another advantage is that the product is very scalable," says Plati. "The new converters would be the same size, dimensions and weight as the ones we currently use, so it would be a simple swap in, swap out. Our customers are telling us that this sounds almost too good to be true."
To get there, Hayes' team will work on the optimization, validation and computational modelling required for the final design and manufacturing of the product.
"My job is to demonstrate that the science behind the technology is sound," says Hayes. "It's not enough to show that something works. You have to explain why it works and be able to model so customers are convinced."
Diesel engines are already the dominant power source for heavy duty trucks like 18-wheelers and dump trucks and their popularity is spreading. Vida plans to tap into business opportunities in Europe, where diesels account for roughly 70 percent of the car market, and in the United States where the market for diesel-powered light duty vehicles is rapidly expanding, just as strict new fuel efficiency standards come into effect in 2016 and 2025.
"It would be very difficult to get these new catalytic converters into the market without support from APC," says Plati. "It allowed us to validate the results in tests with our customers so they can see for themselves that the technology performs as well in real-world conditions as it did in our research."
Vida has partnered with Pyrotek Inc. to manufacture the gas engine catalytic converters at its plant in Chicoutimi, Quebec and recently secured $2.25 million in funding from angel investors and the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario to accelerate commercialization. Vida expects to hit the market with a diesel compatible MCCC within three years and is now looking at adapting the product for natural gas engines.