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New Catalyst May Be a Boost For Fuel Cells
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at the University of Houston (UH) have developed a new platinum-based catalyst for fuel cells that is at least four times more efficient and cheaper than existing catalysts. This discovery in fuel cell research may ease reliance on gasoline. According to the researchers, the active phase of the catalyst consists of nanoparticles with a platinum-rich shell and a core made of an alloy of copper, cobalt, and platinum. But it's not enough for this new catalyst to be more efficient and cheaper than a pure platinum one. It also needs to work for a long time — say, the life of a car. So far, the preliminary results look promising, but longer-term testing is needed before this kind of fuel cells can be used to power your car."
Gotta be the name. Platinum credit cards, platinum blondes, platinum membership....
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This technology has been 15 to 20 years off for the past 10 years. Improvements in battery technology are here, and cost would come down (much more quickly than fuel cells) if more companies jumped on the electric car bandwagon. We need more companies like this: www.teslamotors.com
I extracted 4 key words from TFA : ...may...may...promising...testing.
839*929
Because it's expensive! You get what you pay for.
P226
Platinum is good at binding gas molecules to its surface (adsorbing them), which changes the nature of their electron clouds. This helps overcome the the van der Waals forces that hold them together or apart, making them more likely to react.
Nobody knows for certain just why platinum is good at adsorbing gas molecules to its surface.
In fact, fuel cells can run on other materials, e.g., methane, but this is typically done by the simple trick of using a reformer to produce hydrogen from the methane, and running that hydrogen in a fuel cell. And this can be difficult if the source of the methane is less than extremely pure; in that a lot of common impurities can poison either the catalyst or the reformer.
So, without a good means of storing hydrogen, it's not at all clear that advances in fuel cell technology are terribly useful.
Still, gotta start somewhere...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Some researchers at Purdue came up with a technique back in May that's probably better than this. It uses a Gallium/Aluminum alloy. Aluminum, when exposed to water, produces hydrogen and aluminum oxide. Normally aluminum produces an aluminum oxide layer immediately on any exposed surface, preventing further reaction. This alloy doesn't have that problem. It's unclear precisely how much platinum they require for this process from the news release, but Platinum is far more expensive than either Aluminum or Gallium. Another advantage is that the Gallium is unaffected and can be reused, while the aluminum oxide can readily be converted back to pure aluminum through Fused Salt Electrolysis. The cost of aluminum would make the cost of using this more than the equivalent of the current ~$3/gallon of gas. If there were enough demand and, using the recycling method, the cost of aluminum could be brought down to make it cheaper than the current cost of gas, however. Of course, electricity for the electrolysis has its own environmental impact...
You can get hydrogen from water, for example. It does require energy to extract that hydrogen, but you can use nuclear, wind, or solar power to perform that extraction. The reality is that oil is very unlikely to factor in to producing hydrogen. Unfortunately, coal is the most likely means for producing the requisite energy. For those whose only goal is to liberate us from dependence on Mid-East oil, it's a win. For those of us who care about the environment, it depends on what the energy source is, and is very likely a loss.
Ben Hocking
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Thermal depolymerization - Lazy recycling.
Even if this is a proven method, there's also a cost obstacle to overcome here.
The point of the article is that
- the previous Platinum-based catalyst was about 6 times too expensive to be practical for an automotive application, while
- this one is more than a factor of 6 cheaper, putting it in the running.
In other words they've crossed the affrordability threshold.
If the lifetime testing works out, no roadblocks show up, and something better doesn't come along and obsolete it before it gets deployed, expect this one to actually show up in cars.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The original journal articles for those interested in more than a press release:
Efficient Oxygen Reduction Fuel Cell Electrocatalysis on Voltammetrically Dealloyed Pt-Cu-Co Nanoparticles (Strasser et al., Angewandte Chemie International Edition)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.200703331
Electrocatalysis on Bimetallic Surfaces: Modifying Catalytic Reactivity for Oxygen Reduction by Voltammetric Surface Dealloying (Koh & Strasser)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja0742784
To fully answer that question would take a whole course on organometallic chemistry to explain, but it has to do with the d-electron configuration of the platinum, (d8), which results in organometallic compounds which can be either square planar or octahedral. The ability to switch between these structures (and related oxidation states) allows for transitions and bonding between the states which allows for the creation of intermediates necessary for catalytic reactions. Bulk platinum (i.e. as a heterogeneous catalyst) also has d-electrons available at the metal surface which can form bonding and anti-bonding ( = bond breaking) bonds with small molecules. Essentially when it is reacting with, say, hydrogen gas, the H2 adsorbs onto the surface and, each atom forming a bond with one Pt atom's d-orbital.
A good book might be Heterogeneous Catalysts for the Synthetic Chemist (Google Book Search)
Yes, but going back to economics, the more effective and thus desirable the fuel cells are, the more incentive there is to do research on storing hydrogen.
They suck for cars. Period. More efficient than gas, sure. But:
1. Requires a complete infrastructure rework, just like electric would.
2. Still lower efficiency.
3. Harder to implement in a vehicle, requiring much more exotic material for efficient energy storage vs. battery tech we already have.
I just want an electric car. Ok, actually, I want an affordable (sub-40k) Tesla Roadster-style car, but with four seats and a trunk.
The breakthrough in fuel cells will come when they can deliver 50% or better efficiency from gasoline. Then the dinosaur egg will finally have hatched a chicken, which can then lay a chicken egg: other fuels that fuel cells, and their dependent motors/transmissions/etc, can use. That is a much more likely transition scenario than getting the fuels first, or switching to fuel cells and their fuels simultaneously.
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I don't see how this will do anything to ease the reliance on gasoline. A fuel cell isn't a power source per se - the power still comes from whatever you're feeding it. Whatever you're using as a fuel still requires a power input. This won't do a damn thing for energy independence unless it's coupled with a massive nuclear power plant construction program. And don't go on about wind and solar - even maxed out they barely make a dent.
When that nuclear program finally starts, it's gonna be another decade, at least, before we see any benefit. So assuming they get whatever kinks they have out of the process today, and assuming auto manufacturers rush headlong into production (five year delay), and assuming ignorant opposition ot nuclear power can be overcome in those five years, the earliest this will have any displacement effect on oil is fifteen years from now.
Which, in all practicality, means we'll all be dead before any of this happens.
In addition to what's already been said, platinum is very resistant to being corroded even under very nasty conditions. Thus, it doesn't get used up in the process in which it's taking part.
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The cheapest way to extract hydrogen from water, imho, will be to use John Kanzius radio wave machine which--judging by related patents-- immitates the resonance of platinum so as to act as an artificial catalyst.