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Federal, state, and local law enforcement partners from across the United States executed a nationwide, coordinated takedown today of leaders and associates of a national network of thieves, dealers, and processors for their roles in conspiracies involving stolen catalytic converters sold to a metal refinery for tens of millions of dollars.
According to court documents, brothers Tou Sue Vang, 31, and Andrew Vang, 27, and Monica Moua, 51, all of Sacramento, California, allegedly operated an unlicensed business from their personal residence in Sacramento where they bought stolen catalytic converters from local thieves and shipped them to DG Auto Parts LLC (DG Auto) in New Jersey for processing. The Vang family allegedly sold over $38 million in stolen catalytic converters to DG Auto.
According to court documents, together the defendants bought stolen catalytic converters from thieves on the street, then re-sold and shipped them to DG Auto in New Jersey for processing. Over the course of the conspiracy, defendant Tyler James Curtis received over $13 million in wired funds from DG Auto for the shipment of catalytic converters and received over $500,000 from Capital Cores for catalytic converters. Defendant Adam G. Sharkey received over $45 million in wired funds from DG Auto. And defendant Martynas Macerauskas received over $6 million in payments from DG Auto for catalytic converters. In all these incidents, most of the catalytic converters sold to DG Auto were stolen, and DG Auto knew or should have known that when they paid for them.
Prevost could not do what we do without our dedicated, talented, and visionary partners. They take a barebones structure and craft it into the motorhome of your dreams. Today, we stand strong with five of the elite converter companies to provide you the best coach imaginable. Prevost and our premier converter partners, Marathon Coach, Liberty Coach, Emerald Luxury Coaches, Millennium Coach, and Featherlite Coach have set the standard for opulence, comfort, and quality in the motorhome industry. While they each have their own unique business, vision, style and design, they all fall under the Prevost motorhome umbrella and can truly be called The Ultimate Motorhome.
A catalytic converter is an exhaust emission control device which converts toxic gases and pollutants in exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine into less-toxic pollutants by catalyzing a redox reaction. Catalytic converters are usually used with internal combustion engines fueled by gasoline or diesel, including lean-burn engines, and sometimes on kerosene heaters and stoves.
The first widespread introduction of catalytic converters was in the United States automobile market. To comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's stricter regulation of exhaust emissions, most gasoline-powered vehicles starting with the 1975 model year are equipped with catalytic converters.[1][2][3] These "two-way" converters combine oxygen with carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbons (HC) to produce carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). Although two-way converters on gasoline engines were rendered obsolete in 1981 by "three-way" converters that also reduce oxides of nitrogen (.mw-parser-output .template-chem2-sudisplay:inline-block;font-size:80%;line-height:1;vertical-align:-0.35em.mw-parser-output .template-chem2-su>spandisplay:block;text-align:left.mw-parser-output sub.template-chem2-subfont-size:80%;vertical-align:-0.35em.mw-parser-output sup.template-chem2-supfont-size:80%;vertical-align:0.65emNOx);[4] they are still used on lean-burn engines to oxidize particulate matter and hydrocarbon emissions (including diesel engines, which typically use lean combustion), as three-way-converters require fuel-rich or stoichiometric combustion to successfully reduce NOx.
Although catalytic converters are most commonly applied to exhaust systems in automobiles, they are also used on electrical generators, forklifts, mining equipment, trucks, buses, locomotives, motorcycles, and on ships. They are even used on some wood stoves to control emissions.[5] This is usually in response to government regulation, either through environmental regulation or through health and safety regulations.
Catalytic converter prototypes were first designed in France at the end of the 19th century, when only a few thousand "oil cars" were on the roads; these prototypes had inert clay-based materials coated with platinum, rhodium, and palladium and sealed into a double metallic cylinder.[6] A few decades later, a catalytic converter was patented by Eugene Houdry, a French mechanical engineer. Houdry was an expert in catalytic oil refining, having invented the catalytic cracking process that all modern refining is based on today.[7] Houdry moved to the United States in 1930 to live near the refineries in the Philadelphia area and develop his catalytic refining process. When the results of early studies of smog in Los Angeles were published, Houdry became concerned about the role of smokestack exhaust and automobile exhaust in air pollution and founded a company called Oxy-Catalyst. Houdry first developed catalytic converters for smokestacks, called "cats" for short, and later developed catalytic converters for warehouse forklifts that used low grade, unleaded gasoline.[8] In the mid-1950s, he began research to develop catalytic converters for gasoline engines used on cars and was awarded United States Patent 2,742,437 for his work.[9]
Catalytic converters were further developed by a series of engineers including Carl D. Keith, John J. Mooney, Antonio Eleazar, and Phillip Messina at Engelhard Corporation,[10][11] creating the first production catalytic converter in 1973.[12][unreliable source?]
The first widespread introduction of catalytic converters was in the United States automobile market. To comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new exhaust emissions regulations, most gasoline-powered vehicles manufactured from 1975 onwards are equipped with catalytic converters. Early catalytic converters were "two-way", combining oxygen with carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbons (HC, chemical compounds in fuel of the form CmHn) to produce carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O).[4][1][2][3] These stringent emission control regulations also resulted in the removal of the antiknock agent tetraethyl lead from automotive gasoline, to reduce lead in the air. Lead and its compounds are catalyst poisons and foul catalytic converters by coating the catalyst's surface. Requiring the removal of lead allowed the use of catalytic converters to meet the other emission standards in the regulations.[13]
Catalytic converters require a temperature of 400 C (752 F) to operate effectively. Therefore, they are placed as close to the engine as possible, or one or more smaller catalytic converters (known as "pre-cats") are placed immediately after the exhaust manifold.
This type of catalytic converter is widely used on diesel engines to reduce hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions. They were also used on gasoline engines in American and Canadian-market automobiles until 1981. Because of their inability to control oxides of nitrogen, they were superseded by three-way converters.
Three-way catalytic converters have the additional advantage of controlling the emission of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) (both together abbreviated with NOx and not to be confused with nitrous oxide (N2O)). NOx species are precursors to acid rain and smog.[19]
Since 1981, "three-way" (oxidation-reduction) catalytic converters have been used in vehicle emission control systems in the United States and Canada; many other countries have also adopted stringent vehicle emission regulations that in effect require three-way converters on gasoline-powered vehicles. The reduction and oxidation catalysts are typically contained in a common housing; however, in some instances, they may be housed separately. A three-way catalytic converter has three simultaneous tasks:[19]
These three reactions occur most efficiently when the catalytic converter receives exhaust from an engine running slightly above the stoichiometric point. For gasoline combustion, this ratio is between 14.6 and 14.8 parts air to one part fuel, by weight. The ratio for autogas (or liquefied petroleum gas LPG), natural gas, and ethanol fuels can vary significantly for each, notably so with oxygenated or alcohol based fuels, with e85 requiring approximately 34% more fuel, requiring modified fuel system tuning and components when using those fuels. In general, engines fitted with 3-way catalytic converters are equipped with a computerized closed-loop feedback fuel injection system using one or more oxygen sensors,[citation needed] though early in the deployment of three-way converters, carburetors equipped with feedback mixture control were used.
For compression-ignition (i.e., diesel) engines, the most commonly used catalytic converter is the diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC). DOCs contain palladium and/or platinum supported on alumina. This catalyst converts particulate matter (PM), hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide and water. These converters often operate at 90 percent efficiency, virtually eliminating diesel odor and helping reduce visible particulates. These catalysts are ineffective for NOx, so NOx emissions from diesel engines are controlled by exhaust gas recirculation (EGR).
Many vehicles have a close-coupled catalytic converter located near the engine's exhaust manifold. The converter heats up quickly, due to its exposure to the very hot exhaust gases, enabling it to reduce undesirable emissions during the engine warm-up period. This is achieved by burning off the excess hydrocarbons which result from the extra-rich mixture required for a cold start.
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