WHAT IS A CATALYTIC CONVERTER?
Catalytic Converters are pollution-control devices located in your car’s exhaust system. It is a honey-comb structure coated with platinum and rhodium – two substances that speed up chemical reactions.
Why are chemical reactions important? This little machine converts the carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrous oxides that make up a car’s exhaust into water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen gas. Platinum and rhodium help to turn the harmful gases of the vehicle’s waste into safer bi-products for the environment. Water and carbon dioxide are safer to be released into the environment than carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. Nitrogen gas actually makes up 78% of the air, already. For this reason, Catalytic Converters have been required on all new vehicles since in the 1980s.
WHAT IS A CATALYTIC CONVERTER?
Catalytic Converters work hard to convert harmful gases from your vehicle’s exhaust into less-harmful substances. Ever heard of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, or nitrous oxides? Basically, these gases pollute our air. The United States made it mandatory that all new vehicles have catalytic converters in the 1980s, because these little devices can turn the above gases into water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen gases. Nitrogen gas, water, and carbon dioxide are already found in our air; they do less to hurt the ozone layer, our trees, or our lungs than their alternatives.
The converter is located under the exhaust of your car. From this position, the catalytic converter transforms the harmful substances into healthier gases through its two catalysts – platinum and rhodium, which coat the structure. A catalyst means it can speed up a chemical reaction that forms new compounds from the old gases. The exhaust that is a result is safer for the air.
WHAT IS A CATALYTIC CONVERTER?
Under your exhaust pipe is a little device called a Catalytic Converter that helps to purify your car’s exhaust, making it suitable for our lungs and the atmosphere.
The catalysts, platinum and rhodium, create a chemical reaction to turn gases, which are polluting, into gases which are less so. Carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrous oxides become water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen gas. These gases are not perfect, as we all know, but are less-harmful than the alternative. Keeping this little pollution-reducer running is a part of maintaining a vehicle fit for the road, as well as obeying federal law that makes a functioning catalytic converter mandatory in all vehicles.
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