I was thinking of a way to incorporate the electrostatic precipitation principle to the catalitic converter, to trap and burn up any soot particles in the exhaust, and it occurred to me:
Would charging the catalytic monoliths (negative charge to the NOx monolith, pos charge to the CO/HCx monolith, or vice versa) increase or decrease the rate of catalysis?
I soot a problem in car exhausts? I believe if you see any soot in a car exhaust it would mean it was in bad need of a tune up.
It’s already being done in some cars. I’ve seen a few of these “electric cats” in my work, and as far as I or the other guys in the shop can tell, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. Now, I don’t know the chemistry of the things, but they do indeed have an electrical charge going to them. Oh, BTW, if you see soot coming from your exhaust, you probably need to change your air filter pronto. A catchy little rhyme I learned while wrenching for the army went something like this… “If your exhaust is black smokin’, then your engine is chokin’!”
Well, soot in the exhaust means the misture is too rich: not enough air to burn all the gas. Clogged filter is just one cause. Carburetor in need of tuning is another…
I should’ve evplained myself better;
I was thinking of electrostatically precipitating the soot in DIESEL exhaust…and letting the catalytic converter burn up the soot after it had been trapped.