Regional and global transport of platinum group elements from automobile catalysts

Abstract

Automobile exhaust catalysts were introduced in the US in the mid-1970s to reduce traffic-derived air pollution in urban areas, and have resulted in significant air quality improvements. It has however been demonstrated that a small amount of platinum group elements, the main active components in catalysts, are emitted during vehicle operation (Konig et al., 1992; Palacios et al., 2000; Moldovan et al., 2002) resulting in elevated concentrations of these normally rare metals in the urban and roadside environment (Gomez et al., 2002). While these metals were believed to remain in the urban and roadside environment, recent studies have suggested the possibility for regional and global dispersion of these elements. A 2-year project with the co-authors as partners and funded by the Alliance for Global Sustainability was initiated in 2002 to provide a further understanding of PGE transport from roadside environments. This paper presents literature and project-related information on potential regional and long range transport, from automobile catalysts to global distribution. © 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.