The potential for use of gold in automotive pollution control technologies: a short review

Recent studies relevant to the future use of gold catalysts in the automotive industry are summarized. Gold catalysts have been examined for their potential in low temperature activity to combat cold-start emission problems and removal of NOx from lean-burn gasoline and diesel engines. The justification for developing gold catalyst technologies is based both on their promising technical performance and the relatively stable price and greater availability of gold compared with the platinum group metals (PGMs). Use of gold catalysts under mild conditions could also produce lower proportions of CO in the hydrogen streams used for automotive fuel cells and they could be used for the selective oxidation of carbon monoxide in these hydrogen streams in order to increase the efficiency of these fuel cells. Technical barriers are indicated which still remain to be overcome before application of gold catalysts is successful in the automotive sphere.