This is a new concept developed by KTH in cooperation with Reformtech, a cleantech company with close relations with the vehicle industry. Reformtechs heater technology offers significantly lower emission limits (no NO_x, particulate emissions or toxic carbon monoxide). A higher potential efficiency also reduces fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions. The heater technology that is developed will also be operated on biodiesel that will entirely offer CO₂ neutral emissions.

 One important aspect for the commercialization of these catalytic heaters is the price for the catalyst in the system. Precious metals are very active catalysts, however also very expensive. In this project catalyst materials without precious metals will be prepared, characterized and investigated.
Proposed project plan:

• Literature survey: Literature survey has to be done in order to get an overview of the state of the research the area of catalytic combustion/oxidation
• Catalyst design: Involves the careful choice of the active catalytic phase, promoter, and carrier as well as the optimization of chemical, physical, mechanical and catalytic properties.
• Catalyst preparation: Involve several steps and unit operations, preparation of the support, formulation of the support monolith, deposition of the active component and catalyst activation.
• Catalyst characterization: by different analysis methods, XRD, BET,

The goal with the master thesis is that you as a student are involved in developing a new catalyst for catalytic combustion and gain knowledge of about the concept. You will also learn how to work independently and gaining experience in an up-to-date research field with supervision both from KTH and Reformtech.

Proposed project start: January 2012

Contact information:
Ass. Prof. Henrik Kusar
Chemical Technology
Department of Chemical Engineering and Technology
KTH (Royal Institute of Technology)
SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Address: Teknikringen 42
Phone: +46 (0)8 790 82 82

The diploma work as pdf (pdf 119 kB)