The Los Alamos research team has won an award from the Partnership for the Next Generation of Vehicles. PNGV, commonly called the Green Car Project, is a partnership between the nation's Big Three auto makers and the federal government to design more fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly automobiles.
The team will receive the award from Vice President Gore during a ceremony Monday at the Old Executive Office Building.
The Los Alamos team won the award for its work in reducing nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel and gasoline engines. The research centers around the development of a "lean-burn" engine that will burn gasoline more efficiently than current models. By adding more air to the fuel during combustion, the new engine design burns almost all the hydrocarbons in the fuel. However, a lean-burn engine requires a new kind of catalytic converter that can reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide adequately to meet future pollution control regulations.
As exhaust passes through the reaction chamber of a catalytic converter, pollutants are transformed into harmless nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water. The Los Alamos team helped develop high-temperature catalysts to do the job for a lean-burn engine.
"We discovered the initial step that causes catalysts to degrade," said Los Alamos project leader Antonio Redondo. "Now that we understand why the catalysts break down, we can prevent it. And we've improved the catalysts' efficiency from 20 percent to 80 percent under real automobile engine conditions."
The Los Alamos team is comprised of Redondo, Holmann Brand, James Coons, William Earl, Alan Graham, Raymond Steele and Mark Paffett.
Two former team members who have since left the Laboratory, Craig Hughes and Janos Szanyi, also will receive awards. Members from Lawrence Livermore, Sandia and Oak Ridge national laboratories and General Motors, Ford and Chrysler also participated.
PNGV was created in September 1993 as an umbrella organization under the Department of Commerce, although it also receives funds from the Department of Energy. The Laboratory team now receives funding through the PNGV program. The three-year effort that led to the award was a $1.6 million project. The team has a $400,000 budget this year.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and Washington Group International for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.