CatCon Technologies Inc. has an exclusive worldwide licence to commercialize a novel catalyst for automotive emissions abatement. CatCon intends to offer licenses to OEMs or Tier 1 suppliers for the manufacture and use of its emission abatement technology. The company was founded as a joint venture with Cascade Catalysts Inc., the inventor of the technology. Conation acquired a 51% interest in CatCon in exchange for contribution of $2.8 million – $2.0 million cash and $800,000 in shares. The technology represents a potential paradigm shift in emissions control systems and is expected to be rapidly commercialized.

• Highlights

  • – Contains no platinum group metals (PGMs)
  • – Contains no rare earth elements
  • – Reduces all three target gasses as quickly and efficiently as PGM/rare earth catalytic materials utilized by the automotive industry today
  • – Small scale prototype systems retain activity and longevity when subjected to industry-accepted high temperature aging protocols; resistant to known catalyst poisons such as sulfur
  • – Simple manufacturing methods—”plug and play” washcoat replacement for coating industry standard ceramic honeycomb substrates—can be incorporated into existing production processes
  • – Provisional patents have been filed by Cascade
  • – No geopolitical concerns with supply of raw materials—unlike PGMs (Russia and South Africa) and rare earths (China)
  • – Direct replacement for billions of dollars of PGMs per year at a fraction of that cost

• Background—Technology

  Ever since catalytic converters were first introduced over 35 years ago, automakers have been seeking to replace PGMs with base metals. However, to date, all attempts have failed. Thus far, base metal catalysts have been characterized by lower levels of activity, loss of low temperature activity when exposed to high operating temperatures, and a greater susceptibility to sulfur poisoning.
  Catcon’s prototype catalyst systems perform equally as well as PGM/rare earth metal catalytic converter systems. All three gases (Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Oxides, and Hydrocarbons) were reduced to target levels in a similar period of time as PGM/rare earth systems, subjected to identical testing – a claim made based on laboratory tests using a controlled gas-flow test bench, which was constructed to introduce a regulated mixture of all three target gases to a reaction chamber containing the solid-state substrate. This test bench simulated exhaust gas concentrations, space velocities (flow rate) and working temperatures of automotive exhaust with results obtained in real time using commercially available exhaust analyzers.
  The Company’s prototype catalytic systems have been aged according to industry standards exhibiting longevity and activity at least equal to current state-of-the-art. Indeed, some of the Company’s systems have been operating equally well at the high temperatures (1000°C) that are typically used in “kill tests” for PGM/rare earth systems. The performance of PGM based systems is diminished at these temperatures. Finally, the company’s catalytic material is not compromised when exposed to elemental sulfur.
  The catalytic material being developed contains no precious metals or rare earth elements, equating to a minimum savings in excess of 90% in COGs on a one-to-one replacement for existing automotive catalytic material. Additionally, the company’s catalyst can be deployed in a manner virtually identical to the current production methods for “active” honeycomb catalytic converter cores. This implies the potential for a relatively rapid adoption of the technology by Tier 1 manufacturers.

• Background—Economic

  Platinum, Palladium, and Rhodium, the catalytically active components of current catalytic converters are extremely expensive materials. The table to the right provides a representation of the cost to the automotive industry of precious metals utilized in catalytic converters in the year 2011 alone. As automobile production rebounds from the 2008 slowdown and continues to grow, and as emissions regulations continue to become more stringent, that $11.2 billion figure is expected to grow proportionally.
  Geo-political factors are a significant contributor to price volatility and availability of both PGMs (South Africa and Russia) and rare earths (China).

  

• Future Development

  The Company is nearing the end of the “chemical” development phase of its catalyst (having produced and tested over 400 iterations) and is preparing for the engineering/commercialization phase. To date, the company is in contact and discussions with the top two North American OEMs.

• Summary

  Testing under controlled conditions has demonstrated that the Company’s catalyst systems exhibit superior performance in longevity, robustness to poisons and has indicated that there may be some superiority in light-off temperatures. All three target pollutants are reduced to levels equal to or better than PGM/rare earth metal equivalents at a fraction of the cost.