Cheaper fuel cell catalyst - Researchers scrimp on platinum but not quality

Unlike blinged-out rap stars dripping with platinum chains, fuel cell designers try to scrimp on the precious metal. Researchers have now come up with a new way to make do with less platinum and get even better performance from fuel cells. The finding, which appears online May 14 in Science, may provide a much-needed price chop for clean, efficient fuel cell technology.

Fuel cells generate energy through chemical reactions between hydrogen and oxygen, emitting only water as waste. But the high cost of the materials needed to make these reactions happen — in particular, platinum — has prevented fuel cell technology from becoming prevalent. “The major issue is that reserves and depositions on Earth are very small,” says study coauthor Younan Xia, of Washington University in St. Louis.

Other metals such as lead and stainless steel have been tried as substitutes for the reaction-promoting material, called the catalyst, but they don’t perform as well. “So far, it’s no question. Platinum is the best in terms of performance,” Xia says.

Xia and his colleagues attempted to create an alternative catalyst by combining platinum and palladium, another metal (still precious, but not as rare as platinum). The researchers used a technique called “seeded growth,” in which they first made a base out of palladium molecules, which served as “seeds” for the platinum. Then, the researchers heated the material to about boiling temperature and added an early form of platinum, along with vitamin C. The reaction between the vitamin C and the platinum precursor made the platinum deposit in a pattern that looked like tiny fingers coming off a large palladium ball.

The high surface area of this formation makes the new material a highly efficient catalyst, while using less platinum, Xia says. The team reports that for every molecule converted per second...

"The high surface area of this formation makes the new material a highly efficient catalyst, while using less platinum, Xia says. The team reports that for every molecule converted per second by the commonly used, commercially available catalyst, two molecules are converted by the new material, doubling the activity. What’s more, the activity levels of the new catalyst almost meet performance targets for fuel cell catalysts set by the Department of Energy, an engineering feat."

Hmmm---interesting. And since this is the first experiment in the synthesis, I suspect that further optimization is possible. Fuel cell cars may not be so far away after all.

Ain't human ingenuity grand???

I’m betting that before too many years there will be a breakthrough in capacitor technology.
Capacitors with enormous storage capacity that are lightweight, physically small, cheap and quick charging would make electric cars practical.
Nano tech is likely to give us such capacitors before long. At first they may be relatively low voltage but the voltage can be easily boosted using efficient switching power supplies to the 90-300v needed for good performance in a car.

We are also just on the verge of solar cells that will retail for less than .25/watt...these two technologies will make ‘Green’ transportation and energy a reality.

Forget the lame windmill power systems...they will never be practical.

.....”The US will stop funding research on automotive fuel cells and redirect the work towards stationary plants, because of slow progress on the research. Developing those cells and coming up with a way to transport the hydrogen is a big challenge, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in releasing energy-related details of the administration's budget for the year beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Chu said the government preferred to focus on projects that would bear fruit more quickly. The industry and the National Hydrogen Association criticized the decision and declared their intention to fight for funding. Dr. Chu also announced that funding for a coal gasification pilot project, cut by the Bush administration, will be reinstated. The Obama administration will also drop spending for research on the exploration of oil and gas deposits because the industry itself has ample resources for that, Dr. Chu said.”....

Earlier this week, funding for auto fuel cell research was cut from the budget

Researchers Succeed In Fueling Up
by Jane Brooks
The principle behind fuel cells is not new-it was discovered in 1839... Basically, a fuel cell is a device-think of it as a high-tech battery-that converts the energy of a fuel (hydrogen, natural gas, etc.) and an oxidant (air or oxygen) into useable electricity... There are no moving parts and it produces little noise. Unlike traditional combustion engines that currently dominate the energy market, fuel cells do not produce any particulate matter, nitrogen or sulfur oxides; when fueled by pure hydrogen, they have only heat and water as by-products... To date, hydrogen has been the conventional fuel for a fuel cell. But practical generation and storage of hydrogen has been a problem-it's expensive and inefficient. The model developed by Gorte's team aims to get around this dilemma... Previous attempts to use hydrocarbon fuels to run a solid-oxide fuel cell failed because the electrochemical process that generates electricity caused a buildup of carbon, which ruined the cell. In a solid-oxide fuel cell, oxygen anions are transported through an oxide membrane and react with the fuel at the anode... The Penn researchers were looking for an anode material that did not result in fouling... Eventually, they settled on a composite of copper and ceria. Ceria is an important catalytic component of automotive catalysis, which is why the researchers focused on its properties... Says Gorte, "Running a car is a transient process and you've got to have a pretty big fuel cell to power it, something on the order of 50kw as opposed to a 5kw cell to power a house, for instance." ...At least one major automotive manufacturer is seriously studying this technology... Their work has generated a great deal of excitement and was touted in Nature magazine (3/16/00). Professor Gorte has been interviewed by MSNBC.
Fuel-cell future for gasoline?
by Miguel Llanos
March 15, 2000
"We've demonstrated that we can run a fuel cell directly on hydrocarbons like gasoline and diesel," researcher Ray Gorte told MSNBC. "In the past, everyone assumed you had to use hydrogen." ...The new process not only gets around the problem of delivering and storing hydrogen, Gorte says, it means a fuel cell that produces "less carbon dioxide for a given amount of energy" than other fuel cells because higher efficiency can be achieved... [I]t could provide a valuable interim technology that's easier to deploy and still provide much cleaner and higher mileage than internal combustion engines... Gorte, head of chemical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, sees the research as a "breakthrough," saying an earlier attempt to use gasoline essentially required putting "a refinery in your trunk" to get the hydrogen... Gorte's team used a "solid oxide fuel cell," while others have tended to focus on "proton-exchange membranes." ...One hitch is that the cell is sensitive to sulfur, so that gasoline would have to be cleaned further to make it a viable fuel... Gorte is optimistic about its potential, saying his team hopes to work with a major car company that has created a solid oxide fuel cell division. He would not identify the company, saying he wasn't sure if it was willing to go public yet... Kevin Kendall, a chemical engineer at Britain's University of Birmingham, writes in a Nature article accompanying the study that while hydrogen is "the ultimate clean power source of the future" it is still expensive to extract it, difficult to store and prone to explosion.

"You still have the problem of economically producing,delivering and storing hydrogen."

1)Nanosolar cells (<$1/watt) and electrolysis

2)Generated on-site.

3)Tanks (low pressure at central storage, high pressure in-car). All existing technology.

Here is how I would implement a solar powered transportation system. Starting in California and going east and north along interstate highways, at 100 mile intervals (or halfway between large cities, if less than 100 miles), build an "easy-on, easy-off" ramp that parallels the highway (both sides) for a mile. Offer incentives to companies that establish truck stops to run them. Install sufficient solar photovoltaic to run the truck stop and provide recharging stations for both battery powered cars and hydrogen refill stations for fuel cell cars. As more businesses open along the "strip", and as demand for more battery or hydrogen refilling capacity expands, install more solar along that mile-wide strip perpendicular to the highway.

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