The rapid adoption by the car industry of catalytic converters for petrol engines that reduce the quantities of toxic nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbon pollutants entering the atmosphere has significantly improved air quality, particularly in busy towns and cities. However, this improvement comes at a price, according to Italian scientists who have studied the metallic fallout from catalytic converters.
Claudio Botrè of the University of Rome and Alessandro Alimonti of the Italian National Institute of Health in Rome and their colleagues explain that the increasing numbers of catalytic converters on the road has led to rising environmental levels of the metals used as the catalysts in these devices - platinum, rhodium, palladium, and iridium. The team has published their detailed findings in the International Journal of Environment and Health.
The team analysed air particulate samples collected from two typically busy sites in Rome over the winter of 2004-2005. They used mass spectrometry to determine the chemical constituents of the samples. Their initial findings confirmed that vehicle exhausts, as opposed to hospital incinerators and industrial sites, are the main source of platinum and related metals in the urban environment.
Read Article