The NASCAR governing body and NASCAR teams are always committed to improving safety for the drivers. It is to this end that Premier Chemicals Limited in the UK began work with several teams and the people at NASCAR R&D in North Carolina to bring better performance to driver air purification systems in the car.
Carbon Monoxide is a dangerous substance which can cause nausea, headaches and even blacking out or death. As a hazard of the sport there is a build up of this material during races which in turn is taken into the car by the air conditioning system, that air is then delivered to the drivers via there air fed system into the helmet. NASCAR recognised this issue a long time ago and advised the teams of the problem, the teams in turn went out and developed systems to limit Carbon Monoxide being delivered to the drivers.
Premier Chemicals Limited were contacted to look at this problem with their new Gold based oxidation catalyst NanAuCat™ as an alternative to current systems, with a view to improving performance and reducing costs. Gold has long been thought of as a non-reactive noble metal and in bulk this is true. It is only when you take gold down to Nano particles that you see the true capability of this material. NanAuCat™ is a Gold Nano Particlute based oxidation catalyst on Titanium Dioxide carrier deposited on an amorphous carbon support. It demonstrates extremely high activity in converting Carbon Monoxide to the less harmful Carbon Dioxide. The real advantage comes now as the teams can design much lighter and substantially more efficient catalyst filters using NanAuCat™ giving the drivers increased protection from the dangers of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning. In recent tests conducted in this application NanAuCat™ catalyst showed conversion efficiencies of more than 99% at high air flow rates. No current technology employed in this application gets close to these efficiencies without using a significantly higher quantity of catalyst.
Premier Chemicals Limited is a UK company specialising in gas purification products across many industries. For more information on NanAuCat™ or help with other gas purification queries please contact us – [email protected]
