An investigation into the comparisons of exhaust emissions through catalytic converters installed on a kia sportage lx (exhaust system)

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the comparisons of the HC and CO emission levels on exhaust gases that expels through an existing home used (imported) car converter, a refurbished catalytic converter with a new honeycomb. The performance of a home used catalytic converter, refurb damaged catalytic converters by replacing the worn-out catalyst elements with imported ceramic honeycomb catalysts and compare the performance of the used catalytic converter to that of refurbished and two other locally developed converter of a Kia Sportage LX exhaust system were studied. The experimental results indicated that the refurbished catalytic converter with welded test and ecoliquid wash, produced lower emission than the home used, locally developed converter 1 (Suame Magazine) and locally developed converter 2 (Abossey Okai). For the locally made ones, the welded part of the case was not uniform therefore creating space for the exhaust gas to escape without proper filtration. The result also indicated that HC emission of 60.0 𝑝𝑝𝑚 was recorded for the refurbished converter at an initial speed of 10.0 km/hr which is relatively lower than the HC emission recorded for the home used (65.8 ppm) catalytic converter. In addition, the refurbished type achieves a significant 𝐻𝐶 emission reduction of 5.8 𝑝𝑝𝑚 when compared with the other types. The CO emission, the refurbished type had a reduction of 0.01% 𝑉𝑜𝑙 when compare with the homeused converter at varying speeds. Furthermore, the maximum test speed of 60 km/hr both the home-used and refurbished converters recorded the highest amount of 𝐻𝐶 (70.9 ppm, 63 ppm) and 𝐶𝑂 (2.52 % Vol, 2.42 %Vol) from the engine exhaust respectively. The refurbished converter yielded about 3.41% reduction in HC emission and 7.92 % CO emission which is better as compared to the Locally Developed converter 1 (Magazine). Again, the refurbished converter attained 4.39% reduction in HC emission when compared to the Locally Developed converter 2 (Abossey Okai) at idling speed.