Main Pollutants emitted by vehicle Engines

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Main Pollutants emitted by vehicle Engines

There are three different types of vehicle engine: conventional, lean-burn and diesel. They all produce different types of exhaust emissions because of the ratio of air to fuel that they use. Conventional engines use high levels of fuel and so produce more nitrogen oxides. Lean-burn engines use high amounts of air and so produce more hydrocarbons. Diesel engines are like lean-burn engines, but produce high levels of particles and smoke.

Acid rain

NOX emissions are oxidised in the atmosphere to form NO2. This then reacts with OH radicals to form HNO3, or nitric acid. This then falls to Earth as acid rain.

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This can be shown as the reactions below.

2NO + O2             2NO2

NO + O3               NO2 + O2

NO2 + OH             HNO3 

Heterogeneous Catalyst

A heterogeneous catalyst means that the reactant is in a different physical state to the catalyst. This generally means a solid catalyst and a mixture of gases or liquids as the reactants. A solid catalyst means that the reaction takes place on its surface. Reactants are adsorbed onto the surface, and their bonds weaken and break, ...

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