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Kathleen C. Taylor

Biography of Kathleen C. Taylor

Kathleen C. Taylor's Accomplishments

Kathleen C. Taylor's

legacies

The Clean Air Act of 1970 demanded that automobile makers reduce tailpipe emissions by 90 percent. But how? Chemical engineer Kathleen C. Taylor (b. 1942) and other scientists developed catalytic converters, which use chemical reactions to turn noxious emissions into less harmful gases. Introduced in new cars by 1975, these devices reduced auto exhaust pollution by 95 percent. In chemistry, a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the reaction. A catalytic converter is a device located between a car’s engine and exhaust pipe. The converter is filled with tiny particles of the metals platinum and rhodium. These metals catalyze chemical reactions that turn toxic compounds in the exhaust into less toxic ones. One of the problems with the earliest catalytic converters was their tendency to convert nitric oxide into ammonia. Since ammonia is also toxic, this really did not help matters much. Taylor and her coworkers invented an improved catalytic converter that converted nitric oxide into nitrogen gas, which is not only nontoxic, but also makes up most of the air we breathe.

Kathleen C. Taylor left many legacies behind, but creating a catalytic converter that reduced auto exhaust pollution by 95 percent was probably one of her biggest and most important legacies or inventions. The catalytic converter, which use chemical reactions to turn noxious emissions into less harmful gases. I believe that her discovery or invention was really useful annd important during her time but also in today's world. I say this because with her invention she helped to decrease the pollution in the air cause by automobiles, but not only that she also led to other inventions that benefited and helped the environment. Her invention is still use today because of the growing demand of automobiles as a way of transportation

Kathleen was born on March 14, 1942. She was the daughter of Frederick Taylor and Emily Degan. She was a chemist who won the Garvan–Olin Medal in 1989, and is notable for developing catalytic converters for cars. Taylor earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1964 from Douglass College of New Jersey’s Rutgers University, and then a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Northwestern University in 1968. In the years after this invention, Taylor advanced to the position of director of the materials and processes laboratory at General Motors Research and Development. Now retired from General Motors, she maintains an active role as an adviser to the United States Department of Energy and Columbia University’s Center for Electron Transport in Molecular Nanostructures on a wide variety of new technologies designed to reduce environmental impacts.

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