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Crichton wrote and directed the suspense film "Coma" (1978), adapted from the 1977 novel of the same name by Robin Cook, a friend of his. There are other similarities in terms of genre and the fact that both Cook and Crichton had medical degrees, were of similar age, and wrote about similar subjects. The film was a pop...
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In 1979 it was announced that Crichton would direct a movie version of his novel "Eaters of the Dead" for the newly formed Orion Pictures. This did not occur. Crichton pitched the idea of a modern day "King Solomon's Mines" to 20th Century Fox who paid him $1.5 million for the film rights to the novel, a screenplay and...
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In 1984, Telarium released a graphic adventure based on "Congo". Because Crichton had sold all adaptation rights to the novel, he set the game, named "Amazon", in South America, and Amy the gorilla became Paco the parrot. That year Crichton also wrote and directed "Runaway" (1984), a police thriller set in the near fut...
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Crichton had begun writing "Sphere" in 1967 as a companion piece to "The Andromeda Strain". His initial storyline began with American scientists discovering a 300-year-old spaceship underwater with stenciled markings in English. However, Crichton later realized that he "didn't know where to go with it" and put off comp...
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Crichton worked as a director only on "Physical Evidence" (1989), a thriller originally conceived as a sequel to "Jagged Edge".
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In 1990, Crichton published the novel "Jurassic Park". Crichton utilized the presentation of "fiction as fact", used in his previous novels, "Eaters of the Dead" and "The Andromeda Strain". In addition, chaos theory and its philosophical implications are used to explain the collapse of an amusement park in a "biologica...
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Crichton originally had conceived a screenplay about a graduate student who recreates a dinosaur, but decided to put off exploring his fascination with dinosaurs and cloning until he began writing the novel. Steven Spielberg learned of the novel in October 1989 while he and Crichton were discussing a screenplay that wo...
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In 1992, Crichton published the novel "Rising Sun", an international bestselling crime thriller about a murder in the Los Angeles headquarters of Nakamoto, a fictional Japanese corporation. The book was adapted into the 1993 film directed by Philip Kaufman and starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes, released the same ...
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His next novel, "Disclosure", published in 1994, addresses the theme of sexual harassment previously explored in his 1972 "Binary". Unlike that novel however, Crichton centers on sexual politics in the workplace, emphasizing an array of paradoxes in traditional gender functions by featuring a male protagonist who is be...
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Crichton was the creator and an executive producer of the television drama "ER" based on his 1974 pilot script "24 Hours". Spielberg helped develop the show, serving as an executive producer on season one and offering advice (he insisted on Julianna Margulies becoming a regular, for example). It was also through Spielb...
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Crichton then published "The Lost World" in 1995 as the sequel to "Jurassic Park". The title was a reference to Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" (1912). It was made into the two years later, again directed by Spielberg. In March 1994, Crichton said there would probably be a sequel novel as well as a film adaptatio...
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Then, in 1996, Crichton published "Airframe", an aero-techno-thriller. The book continued Crichton's overall theme of the failure of humans in human-machine interaction, given that the plane worked perfectly and the accident would not have occurred had the pilot reacted properly.
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In 1999, Crichton published "Timeline", a science fiction novel in which experts time travel back to the medieval period. The novel, which continued Crichton's long history of combining technical details and action in his books, addresses quantum physics and time travel directly and received a warm welcome from medieva...
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"Eaters of the Dead" was adapted into the 1999 film "The 13th Warrior" directed by John McTiernan, who was later removed, with Crichton himself taking over direction of reshoots.
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In 2002, Crichton published "Prey", about developments in science and technology, specifically nanotechnology. The novel explores relatively recent phenomena engendered by the work of the scientific community, such as: artificial life, emergence (and by extension, complexity), genetic algorithms, and agent-based comput...
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In 2004, Crichton published "State of Fear", a novel concerning eco-terrorists who attempt mass murder to support their views. Global warming serves as a central theme to the novel. A review in "Nature" found the novel "likely to mislead the unwary". The novel had an initial print run of 1.5 million copies and reached ...
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The last novel published while he was still living was "Next" in 2006. The novel follows many characters, including transgenic animals, in the quest to survive in a world dominated by genetic research, corporate greed, and legal interventions, wherein government and private investors spend billions of dollars every yea...
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In 2006, Crichton clashed with journalist Michael Crowley, a senior editor of the magazine "The New Republic". In March 2006, Crowley wrote a strongly critical review of "State of Fear", focusing on Crichton's stance on global warming. In the same year, Crichton published the novel "Next", which contains a minor charac...
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Several novels that were in various states of completion upon Crichton's death have since been published. The first, "Pirate Latitudes", was found as a manuscript on one of his computers after his death. It centers on a fictional privateer who attempts to raid a Spanish galleon. It was published in November 2009 by Har...
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Additionally, Crichton had completed the outline for and was roughly a third of the way through a novel titled "Micro", a novel which centers on technology that shrinks humans to microscopic sizes. "Micro" was completed by Richard Preston using Crichton's notes and files, and was published in November 2011.
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On July 28, 2016, Crichton's website and HarperCollins announced the publication of a third posthumous novel, titled "Dragon Teeth", which he had written in 1974. It is a historical novel set during the Bone Wars, and includes the real life characters of Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. The novel was rele...
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In addition, some of his published works are being continued by other authors. On February 26, 2019, Crichton's website and HarperCollins announced the publication of "The Andromeda Evolution", the sequel to "The Andromeda Strain", a collaboration with CrichtonSun LLC. and author Daniel H. Wilson. It was released on No...
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It was later announced that his unpublished works will be adapted into TV shows and movies in collaboration with CrichtonSun and Range Media Partners.
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On December 15, 2022, it was announced that James Patterson will coauthor a novel about a mega-eruption of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, based on an unfinished manuscript by Crichton. It is set to be published in 2024.
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In 1983, Crichton wrote "Electronic Life", a book that introduces BASIC programming to its readers. The book, written like a glossary, with entries such as: "Afraid of Computers (everybody is)", "Buying a Computer" and "Computer Crime", was intended to introduce the idea of personal computers to a reader who might be f...
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"Amazon" is a graphical adventure game created by Crichton and produced by John Wells. Trillium released it in the United States in 1984, and the game runs on Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and DOS. "Amazon" sold more than 100,000 copies, making it a significant commercial success at the time. It featur...
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Crichton started a company selling a computer program he had originally written to help him create budgets for his movies. He often sought to utilize computing in films, such as "Westworld", which was the first film to employ computer-generated special effects. He also pushed Spielberg to include them in the "Jurassic ...
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In November 2006, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Crichton joked that he considered himself an expert in intellectual property law. He had been involved in several lawsuits with others claiming credit for his work.
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In 1985, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard "Berkic v. Crichton", 761 F.2d 1289 (1985). Plaintiff Ted Berkic wrote a screenplay called "Reincarnation Inc.", which he claims Crichton plagiarized for the movie "Coma". The court ruled in Crichton's favor, stating the works were not substantiall...
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In the 1996 case, "Williams v. Crichton", 84 F.3d 581 (2d Cir. 1996), Geoffrey Williams claimed that "Jurassic Park" violated his copyright covering his dinosaur-themed children's stories published in the late 1980s. The court granted summary judgment in favor of Crichton.
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In 1998, A United States District Court in Missouri heard the case of "Kessler v. Crichton" that actually went all the way to a jury trial, unlike the other cases. Plaintiff Stephen Kessler claimed the movie "Twister" (1996) was based on his work "Catch the Wind". It took the jury about 45 minutes to reach a verdict in...
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Crichton became well known for attacking the science behind global warming. He testified on the subject before Congress in 2005.
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His views would be contested by a number of scientists and commentators. An example is meteorologist Jeffrey Masters's review of Crichton's 2004 novel "State of Fear":
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Peter Doran, author of the paper in the January 2002 issue of "Nature", which reported the finding referred to above that some areas of Antarctica had cooled between 1986 and 2000, wrote an opinion piece in the July 27, 2006, "The New York Times" in which he stated "Our results have been misused as 'evidence' against g...
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Crichton's novels, including "Jurassic Park", have been described by "The Guardian" as "harking back to the fantasy adventure fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Edgar Wallace, but with a contemporary spin, assisted by cutting-edge technology references made accessible for the gene...
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Crichton's works were frequently cautionary; his plots often portrayed scientific advancements going awry, commonly resulting in worst-case scenarios. A notable recurring theme in Crichton's plots is the pathological failure of complex systems and their safeguards, whether biological ("Jurassic Park"), militaristic/org...
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The use of author surrogate was a feature of Crichton's writings from the beginning of his career. In "A Case of Need", one of his pseudonymous whodunit stories, Crichton used first-person narrative to portray the hero, a Bostonian pathologist, who is running against the clock to clear a friend's name from medical malp...
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Crichton has used the literary technique known as the false document. "Eaters of the Dead" is a "recreation" of the Old English epic" Beowulf" presented as a scholarly translation of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's 10th century manuscript. "The Andromeda Strain" and" Jurassic Park "incorporate fictionalized scientific documents in ...
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Crichton often employs the premise of diverse experts or specialists assembled to tackle a unique problem requiring their individual talents and knowledge. The premise was used for "The Andromeda Strain", "Sphere", "Jurassic Park", and, to a lesser extent, "Timeline". Sometimes the individual characters in this dynamic...
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As an adolescent Crichton felt isolated because of his height (6 ft 9 in, or 206 cm). During the 1970s and 1980s, he consulted psychics and enlightenment gurus to make him feel more socially acceptable and to improve his karma. As a result of these experiences, Crichton practiced meditation throughout much of his life....
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Crichton was a workaholic. When drafting a novel, which would typically take him six or seven weeks, Crichton withdrew completely to follow what he called "a structured approach" of ritualistic self-denial. As he neared writing the end of each book, he would rise increasingly early each day, meaning that he would sleep...
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He married five times. Four of the marriages ended in divorce with: Joan Radam (1965–1970), Kathleen St. Johns (1978–1980), Suzanna Childs (1981–1983) and actress Anne-Marie Martin (1987–2003), the mother of his daughter Taylor Anne (born 1989). At the time of his death, Crichton was married to Sherri Alexander (marrie...
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According to Crichton's brother Douglas, Crichton was diagnosed with lymphoma in early 2008. In accordance with the private way in which Crichton lived, his cancer was not made public until his death. He was undergoing chemotherapy treatment at the time of his death, and Crichton's physicians and relatives had been exp...
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Crichton had an extensive collection of 20th-century American art, which Christie's auctioned in May 2010.
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Most of Crichton's novels address issues emerging in scientific research fields. In a number of his novels ("Jurassic Park", "The Lost World", "Next", "Congo"), genomics plays an important role. Usually, the drama revolves around the sudden eruption of a scientific crisis, revealing the disruptive impacts new forms of ...
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Crichton was also a popular public speaker. He delivered a number of notable speeches in his lifetime, particularly on the topic of Global Warming.
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On March 14, 2007, Intelligence Squared held a debate in New York City titled "Global Warming Is Not a Crisis", moderated by Brian Lehrer. Crichton was on the "for the motion" side with Richard Lindzen and Philip Stott against Gavin Schmidt, Richard Somerville, and Brenda Ekwurzel. Before the debate, the audience was l...
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In a speech delivered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on April 7, 1993, Crichton predicted the decline of mainstream media.
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The AAAS invited Crichton to address scientists' concerns about how they are portrayed in the media, delivered to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim, California on January 25, 1999.
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This was not the first discussion of environmentalism as a religion, but it caught on and was widely quoted. Crichton explains his view that religious approaches to the environment are inappropriate and cause damage to the natural world they intend to protect. The speech was delivered to the Commonwealth Club in San Fr...
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Crichton outlined several issues before a joint meeting of liberal and conservative think tanks. The speech was delivered at AEI–Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. on January 25, 2005.
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On January 25, 2005 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Crichton delivered a detailed explanation of why he criticized the consensus view on global warming. Using published UN data, he argued that claims for catastrophic warming arouse doubt; that reducing CO is vastly more difficult than is commonly presum...
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"Aliens Cause Global Warming" January 17, 2003. In the spirit of his science fiction writing, Crichton details research on nuclear winter and SETI Drake equations relative to global warming science.
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Crichton was invited to testify before the Senate in September 2005, as an "expert witness on global warming". The speech was delivered to the Committee on Environment and Public Works in Washington, D.C.
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In previous speeches, Crichton criticized environmental groups for failing to incorporate complexity theory. Here he explains in detail why complexity theory is essential to environmental management, using the history of Yellowstone Park as an example of what not to do. The speech was delivered to the Washington Center...
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While writing "Next", Crichton concluded that laws covering genetic research desperately needed to be revised, and spoke to congressional staff members about problems ahead. The speech was delivered to a group of legislative staffers in Washington, D.C. on September 14, 2006.
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In a speech in 2002, Crichton coined the term Gell-Mann amnesia effect, after physicist Murray Gell-Mann. He used this term to describe the phenomenon of experts believing news articles on topics outside of their fields of expertise, even after acknowledging that articles written in the same publication that are within...
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In 2002, a genus of ankylosaurid, "Crichtonsaurus bohlini", was named in his honor. This species was concluded to be dubious however, and some of the diagnostic fossil material was then transferred into the new binomial "Crichtonpelta benxiensis", also named in his honor. His properties continue to be adapted into film...
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A catalytic converter is an exhaust emission control device that converts toxic gases and pollutants in exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine into less-toxic pollutants by catalyzing a redox reaction. Catalytic converters are usually used with internal combustion engines fueled by gasoline or diesel, including...
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The first widespread introduction of catalytic converters was in the United States automobile market. To comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's stricter regulation of exhaust emissions, most gasoline-powered vehicles starting with the 1975 model year are equipped with catalytic converters. These "two-wa...
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Although catalytic converters are most commonly applied to exhaust systems in automobiles, they are also used on electrical generators, forklifts, mining equipment, trucks, buses, locomotives, motorcycles, and on ships. They are even used on some wood stoves to control emissions. This is usually in response to governme...
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Catalytic converter prototypes were first designed in France at the end of the 19th century, when only a few thousand "oil cars" were on the roads; these prototypes had inert clay-based materials coated with platinum, rhodium, and palladium and sealed into a double metallic cylinder. A few decades later, a catalytic co...
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Catalytic converters were further developed by a series of engineers including Carl D. Keith, John J. Mooney, Antonio Eleazar, and Phillip Messina at Engelhard Corporation, creating the first production catalytic converter in 1973.
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The first widespread introduction of catalytic converters was in the United States automobile market. To comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new regulation of exhaust emissions, most gasoline-powered vehicles starting with the 1975 model year are equipped with catalytic converters. These "two-way" co...
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William C. Pfefferle developed a catalytic combustor for gas turbines in the early 1970s, allowing combustion without significant formation of nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide.
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Upon failure, a catalytic converter can be recycled into scrap. The precious metals inside the converter, including platinum, palladium, and rhodium, are extracted.
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Catalytic converters require a temperature of to operate effectively. Therefore, they are placed as close to the engine as possible, or one or more smaller catalytic converters (known as "pre-cats") are placed immediately after the exhaust manifold.
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A 2-way (or "oxidation", sometimes called an "oxi-cat") catalytic converter has two simultaneous tasks:
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This type of catalytic converter is widely used on diesel engines to reduce hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions. They were also used on gasoline engines in American- and Canadian-market automobiles until 1981. Because of their inability to control oxides of nitrogen, they were superseded by three-way converters.
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Three-way catalytic converters have the additional advantage of controlling the emission of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO) (both together abbreviated with and not to be confused with nitrous oxide (NO)). species are precursors to acid rain and smog.
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Since 1981, "three-way" (oxidation-reduction) catalytic converters have been used in vehicle emission control systems in the United States and Canada; many other countries have also adopted stringent vehicle emission regulations that in effect require three-way converters on gasoline-powered vehicles. The reduction and...
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These three reactions occur most efficiently when the catalytic converter receives exhaust from an engine running slightly above the stoichiometric point. For gasoline combustion, this ratio is between 14.6 and 14.8 parts air to one part fuel, by weight. The ratio for autogas (or liquefied petroleum gas LPG), natural g...
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Three-way converters are effective when the engine is operated within a narrow band of air-fuel ratios near the stoichiometric point. Total conversion efficiency falls very rapidly when the engine is operated outside of this band. Slightly lean of stoichiometric, the exhaust gases from the engine contain excess oxygen,...
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Closed-loop engine control systems are used for effective operation of three-way catalytic converters because of this continuous rich-lean balance required for effective reduction and HC+CO oxidation. The control system allows the catalyst to release oxygen during slightly rich operating conditions, which oxidizes CO a...
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Closed-loop control under light to moderate load is accomplished by using one or more oxygen sensors in the exhaust system. When oxygen is detected by the sensor, the air:fuel ratio is lean of stoichiometric, and when oxygen is not detected, it is rich. The control system adjusts the rate of fuel being injected into th...
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Closed loop control is often not used during high load/maximum power operation, when an increase in emissions is permitted and a rich mixture is commanded to increase power and prevent exhaust gas temperature from exceeding design limits. This presents a challenge for control system and catalyst design. During such ope...
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Unwanted reactions result in the formation of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, which poison catalysts. Nickel or manganese is sometimes added to the washcoat to limit hydrogen-sulfide emissions. Sulfur-free or low-sulfur fuels eliminate or minimize problems with hydrogen sulfide.
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For compression-ignition (i.e., diesel) engines, the most commonly used catalytic converter is the "diesel oxidation catalyst" (DOC). DOCs contain palladium and/or platinum supported on alumina. This catalyst converts particulate matter (PM), hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide and water. These converte...
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In 2010, most light-duty diesel manufacturers in the U.S. added catalytic systems to their vehicles to meet federal emissions requirements. Two techniques have been developed for the catalytic reduction of emissions under lean exhaust conditions, selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and the adsorber.
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Instead of precious metal-containing absorbers, most manufacturers selected base-metal SCR systems that use a reagent such as ammonia to reduce the into nitrogen and water. Ammonia is supplied to the catalyst system by the injection of urea into the exhaust, which then undergoes thermal decomposition and hydrolysis int...
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Diesel exhaust contains relatively high levels of particulate matter. Catalytic converters remove only 20–40% of PM so particulates are cleaned up by a soot trap or diesel particulate filter (DPF). In the U.S., all on-road light, medium, and heavy-duty diesel-powered vehicles built after 1 January 2007, are subject to ...
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For lean-burn spark-ignition engines, an oxidation catalyst is used in the same manner as in a diesel engine. Emissions from lean burn spark ignition engines are very similar to emissions from a diesel compression ignition engine.
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Many vehicles have a close-coupled catalytic converter located near the engine's exhaust manifold. The converter heats up quickly, due to its exposure to the very hot exhaust gases, enabling it to reduce undesirable emissions during the engine warm-up period. This is achieved by burning off the excess hydrocarbons whic...
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When catalytic converters were first introduced, most vehicles used carburetors that provided a relatively rich air-fuel ratio. Oxygen (O) levels in the exhaust stream were therefore generally insufficient for the catalytic reaction to occur efficiently. Most designs of the time therefore included secondary air injecti...
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Some three-way catalytic converter systems have air injection systems with the air injected between the first ( reduction) and second (HC and CO oxidation) stages of the converter. As in two-way converters, this injected air provides oxygen for the oxidation reactions. An upstream air injection point, ahead of the cata...
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Most newer vehicles have electronic fuel injection systems, and do not require air injection systems in their exhausts. Instead, they provide a precisely controlled air-fuel mixture that quickly and continually cycles between lean and rich combustion. Oxygen sensors monitor the exhaust oxygen content before and after t...
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Catalyst poisoning occurs when the catalytic converter is exposed to exhaust containing substances that coat the working surfaces, so that they cannot contact and react with the exhaust. The most notable contaminant is lead, so vehicles equipped with catalytic converters can run only on unleaded fuel. Other common cata...
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Depending on the contaminant, catalyst poisoning can sometimes be reversed by running the engine under a very heavy load for an extended period of time. The increased exhaust temperature can sometimes vaporize or sublimate the contaminant, removing it from the catalytic surface. However, removal of lead deposits in thi...
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Any condition that causes abnormally high levels of unburned hydrocarbons (raw or partially burnt fuel or oils) to reach the converter will tend to significantly elevate its temperature, bringing the risk of a meltdown of the substrate and resultant catalytic deactivation and severe exhaust restriction. These condition...
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Emissions regulations vary considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Most automobile spark-ignition engines in North America have been fitted with catalytic converters since 1975, and the technology used in non-automotive applications is generally based on automotive technology. In many jurisdictions, it is illeg...
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In the United States, it is a violation of Section 203(a)(3)(A) of the 1990 amended Clean Air Act for a vehicle repair shop to remove a converter from a vehicle, or cause a converter to be removed from a vehicle, except in order to replace it with another converter, and Section 203(a)(3)(B) makes it illegal for any per...
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Faulty catalytic converters as well as undamaged early types of converters can restrict the flow of exhaust, which negatively affects vehicle performance and fuel economy. Modern catalytic converters do not significantly restrict exhaust flow. A 2006 test on a 1999 Honda Civic, for example, showed that removing the sto...
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Carburetors on pre-1981 vehicles without feedback fuel-air mixture control could easily provide too much fuel to the engine, which could cause the catalytic converter to overheat and potentially ignite flammable materials under the car.
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Vehicles fitted with catalytic converters emit most of their total pollution during the first five minutes of engine operation; for example, before the catalytic converter has warmed up sufficiently to be fully effective.
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In the early 2000s it became common to place the catalyst converter right next to the exhaust manifold, close to the engine, for much quicker warm-up.
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In 1995, Alpina introduced an electrically heated catalyst. Called "E-KAT," it was used in Alpina's B12 5,7 E-KAT based on the BMW 750i. Heating coils inside the catalytic converter assemblies are electrified just after the engine is started, bringing the catalyst up to operating temperature very quickly to qualify the...
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Some vehicles contain a pre-cat, a small catalytic converter upstream of the main catalytic converter which heats up faster on vehicle start up, reducing the emissions associated with cold starts. A pre-cat is most commonly used by an auto manufacturer when trying to attain the Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle (ULEV) rating...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=286802
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Catalytic converters have proven to be reliable and effective in reducing noxious tailpipe emissions. However, they also have some shortcomings in use, and also adverse environmental effects in production:
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Because of the external location and the use of valuable precious metals including platinum, palladium and rhodium, catalytic converters are a target for thieves. The problem is especially common among late-model pickup trucks and truck-based SUVs, because of their high ground clearance and easily removed bolt-on catal...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=286802
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From 2019–2020, thieves in the United Kingdom were targeting older-model hybrid cars (such as Toyota's hybrids) which have more precious metals than newer vehicles—sometimes worth more than the value of the car—leading to scarcity and long delays in replacing them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=286802