A major (and somewhat unexpected) obstacle to the hydrogen revolution is the lack of platinum in our world. Prices once peaked at over $2,000 an ounce for the stuff, and they're still up over $1,400.

A true hydrogen economy would certainly see prices spiking much higher than that, triggering invasive mining and exploration.

But the platinum is necessary as a catalyst both at the anode (splitting O2) and the cathode (splitting H2.) At least...it is for now.

Recognizing that this is a significant obstacle to the development of fuel cells, several organizations are working on replacing platinum. A team of Australian researchers has actually succeeded in replacing the cathode with a conductive polymer similar to Gore-Tex and they said they thought it might be possible to replace the anode as well

The result would be a fuel cell that is considerably cheaper, lighter and easier to manufacture than fuel cells today. While engineers at auto companies have done a good job of reducing the amount of platinum in fuel cells, completely eliminating it would be a huge boon for hydrogen vehicles and power generation.

Via ABC and Earth2Tech

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