Nanostellar, a company pursuing nano-engineered catalyst materials, today announced a first in diesel emissions technology: the use of gold as an oxidation catalyst.

Nanostellar’s new NS Gold™ catalyst enables manufacturers of light- and heavy-duty diesel engines to reduce noxious emissions by as much as 40 percent more than existing pure-platinum catalysts at equal cost, the company claimed.

Nanostellar introduced a first-generation product based on a platinum and palladium alloy in mid-2006, and it achieved 25%-30% higher performance than conventional pure-platinum catalysts.

The new second-generation gold based product delivers a further 15%-20% performance increase, said the company.

While sounding expensive, gold is currently about half the price of platinum.

A tri-metal formulation of gold, platinum, and palladium, Nanostellar's NS Gold allows the proportions of each metal to be adjusted to help catalyst systems engineers meet engine-specific performance targets and stabilize the overall cost of diesel catalysts, despite fluctuations in the price of precious metals.

“Not only does NS Gold break performance barriers imposed by mixed platinum and palladium catalysts, but also its performance can be more easily tuned to the characteristics of a variety of diesel engines,” said Pankaj Dhingra, CEO of Nanostellar. “Gold is not new to catalyst scientists, but this is the first time it has been successfully adapted for use in automotive diesel oxidation catalysts.”

The company says NS Gold is immediately available for targeted application-specific testing. Production quantities will be available as production programs are identified and released.

Nanostellar provides diesel automotive and stationary power industries with nano-engineered catalyst materials that reduce exhaust emissions and increase the effectiveness of precious metals in catalysts.

Headquartered in Redwood City, California, Nanostellar is funded by investors including 3i, Khosla Ventures, Monitor Ventures, Firelake Capital Management LLC, and AsiaTech Management.