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Automotive Industry

Automotive Industry
Precious Metal Compounds for the Coating of Catalyst Supports
Today most of the chemical and power-relevant processes in industry are based on catalysts.
In a wider sense these are products or devices “accelerating” reactions without being “spent”, and sometimes completing a reaction through this.
Such reactions can mainly be found in chemical and pharmaceutical syntheses. Also the purification of exhaust emissions from stationary plants (heating power stations) and – as is well known – from the automobile industry belongs to the most important field of applied catalysis. All of them are chemical reactions without exception.
Technical catalysts are subdivided into homogeneous and heterogeneous ones. The latter are solids, insoluble in the reaction mixture, and thus always form multiphase systems.
Among heterogeneous catalysts the supported ones are all-important. For their manufacture a material more or less inert to the reaction conditions (just the “support”, otherwise “carrier”) is coated with the catalytically active substance in the form of aqueous or alcoholic solutions.
Here, the chemical reaction of the gaseous or liquid reactants (i.e. starting materials) takes place on the surface of the support impregnated with the effective catalytic substance.
Due to their activities and selectivities, catalysts for the automobile industry are mainly based on the platinum group metals (PGM’s), i.e. platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, but also on gold.
Our Chemical Products Business Unit manufactures suitable compounds and their solutions as core products, which serve to coat such catalyst supports:
Platinum (Pt)
An important application of Pt along with palladium and rhodium is the catalytic reduction of exhaust emissions (i.e. carbon monoxide CO, hydrocarbons HC, partly nitrogen oxides NOx) from automobiles running on fuels. Here is use of mainly cylindrical converters based on ceramic cordierite (honeycombs) or on steel foil wound and soldered (metal support).

Heraeus’ Pt chemicals for coating are e.g.:

• Dihydrogen hexachloroplatinate(IV) hydrate, H2[PtCl6]•nH2O („CPA“)
• Platinum(II) nitrate, Pt(NO3)2
• cis-Diamminedinitritoplatinum(II) solution, cis-[Pt(NO2)2(NH3)2]
• Tetraammineplatinum(II) chloride hydrate, [Pt(NH3)4]Cl2•nH2O
• Tetraammineplatinum(II) hydrogencarbonate, [Pt(NH3)4](HCO3)2
• Tetraammineplatinum(II) hydroxide solution, [Pt(NH3)4](OH)2
• Tetraammineplatinum(II) nitrate solution, [Pt(NH3)4](NO3)2
• Platinum sulfite solution
• 2-Hydroxyethylammonium hexahydroxoplatinate(IV) solution „Pt EA“
Palladium (Pd)
Heraeus offers you for the coating with palladium e.g.:

• Diamminedinitritopalladium(II) solution, [Pd(NO2)2(NH3)2]
• Tetraamminepalladium(II) chloride hydrate, [Pd(NH3)4]Cl2•nH2O
• Tetraamminepalladium(II) hydrogencarbonate, [Pd(NH3)4](HCO3)2
• Tetraamminepalladium(II) nitrate solution, [Pd(NH3)4](NO3)2
• Dihydrogen tetrachloropalladate(II) solution, H2[PdCl4]
• Palladium(II) nitrate solution, Pd(NO3)2
• Sodium tetrachloropalladate(II), Na2[PdCl4]
• Potassium tetrachloropalladate(II), K2[PdCl4]
• Palladium(II) acetate, Pd(OAc)2
• Tetraamminepalladium(II) hydroxide solution, [Pd(NH3)4](OH)2
Rhodium (Rh)
More than 80 % of the worldwide demand for Rh in automotive catalytic converters is based on its application as a co-metal to Pt or Pd.

Heraeus supplies you with rhodium chemicals for coating supports, e.g.:

• Rhodium(III) chloride, RhCl3•nH2O
• Rhodium(III) nitrate solution, Rh(NO3)3
• Rhodium sulfite solution
Iridium (Ir)
Also Ir was used in automotive catalytic converters for direct injection engines.

Heraeus supplies you for Ir coating with e.g.:

• Dihydrogen hexachloroiridate(IV) hydrate, H2[IrCl6]•nH2O
• Iridium(IV) chloride hydrate, IrCl4•nH2O
• Iridium acetate
Gold (Au)
Au mainly serves as a co-catalyst.

Heraeus’ primary Au compound for coating is:

• Hydrogen tetrachloroaurate(III) hydrate, H[AuCl4]•nH2O
We look forward to your enquiries and are at your disposal at any time. Should you not find the product you are searching for, please feel free to contact us.
Our company also offers you finished supported catalysts and the recovery of precious metals from spent catalysts. For this, please, visit the web pages of our Catalysts and Recycling business units.

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