With all of the technological advances lately, couldn’t a catalytic converter be designed with cheaper materials that aren’t worth stealing?
In: 2057
The chemistry isn’t there.
The reaction must take exhaust gasses, and output and convert a certain percentage of it into something eco friendly and non-harmful.
Hard to say what chemicals fit that bill…
But it’s REALLY hard to argue convincingly that water isn’t “eco friendly and non-harmful”.
So, you know the reactant, and you know the resultant.
You just need to find the most cost effective catalyst to do it.
And that catalyst itself has to be eco friendly and non harmful. They have to be pretty durable, and also withstand VERY high exhaust temperatures. 1300 degf for a new toyota corolla. Hot enough to make mild steel glow dull red.
And it needs to not oxidize a whole lot when it gets that hot… most metals do.
So it has to be HIGHLY inert even at high temperatures. But reactive in just the right way to output water.
High temp oxidization resistance… (platinum group metals).) relatively durable mechanical properties (platinum group metals)… highly inert (platinum group metals)… largely non toxic by itself (platinum group metals)…
Surprise of all surprises… the stars align on only a few chemicals… solid at those temps, oxidization resistant, reasonably strong, highly inert, and output what we want.
Properties of materials are guessable to some extent.
Nothing presently (save possible exotic materials) has any chance of being useful for that application.
So, the cheapest materials for the cause, wind up being… the ONLY materials for the cause. Because all of those attributes are rare, and incredibly rare together, naturally the price of that material is high.
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