AUG 15

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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DU Key to Better Electric Cars?
written by Uncle B, September 26, 2008

Very little is know, good, bad, or otherwise about Depleted Uranium. This hitherto unexploited resource and any knowledge about it lies hidden in the Military Troll's secret chests. We need this information to be made public, to our Universities, and we need to fund them to develop the Science and Technology that will build our great countries' future strength. DU - the last great unknown?

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