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Cat converters convert Carbon monoxide, a product of incomplete combustion, to Carbon Dioxide.
If you have your mixture at peak or lean of peak as determined by an EGT, or have an oxygen sensor connected to your ECM, you should have complete combustion and no carbon monoxide. The vast majority of your operations are steady state/cruise and there is very little aircraft engine operation with widely varying engine power settings, such as a car would have in stop and go traffic.
A cat converter adds weight, complexity and a HUGE heat source that has to be shielded/cooled/wrapped to prevent heat damage or fire within the cowl... and in a properly operated engine, not a lot of benefit.
Leaded avgas will destroy/contaminate the platinum catalyst agent in a cat converter so you would be restricted to unleaded fuel PERIOD if you desired the converter to work. One tankful of lead could do the damage. One inattentive or "helpful" line guy who tops your tank off with 100LL..
You get the picture.
Dave
Ernest Christley wrote:
Christopher Owens wrote:
Good afternoon all,
In this day and age of EPA, pollution control, green earth, etc., I wondered about the viability of an exhaust catalyst in an aircraft application. Are there any reasons not to use a catalytic converter in this capacity? Weight? Exhaust restrictions? Other?
Weight and exhaust restriction are the start of it. I believe the rest is that there is not much payoff. The cat gets the most payoff during hard accelerations, which you do a lot of in a car. Not so much in a plane.
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