Facile photochemical growth of metallic nanoparticles for automobile exhaust catalysis

Regarding the real combustion, there are a number of incomplete combustion products in the engine of automobiles. Most of common exhaust gas compositions are carbon monoxide (CO), unburned hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides (NOx). Up to now various ceramics such as Al2O3, SiC and metallic substrates (Ni, Fe, Mo, Co,…) are used as a support to deposition of catalyst materials on their surface. These materials have a porous structure with high temperature of melting. It is well known that various materials like Pt and Pd are introduced as effective catalyst for automobile exhaust. The key point is the homogeneous deposition of these materials on the porous substrate while their size is normally 10-50 nm to have more catalytic efficiency. In this work, we show that a low temperature chemical deposition of both Pd nanoparticles on the porous metallic substrates with controllable size can be occurred under low intensity light illumination during the chemical reactions. Our results indicate that the prepared nanocomposites have considerable catalytic properties for exhaust gases.