Fuel Cell
Platinum For Fuel Cells Gets Cheaper
The D
OE laboratory I work for recently published some promising results of one of our fuel cell experiments. Researchers with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Houston recently found a way to get platinum to be more conductive. It doesn’t sound like much, but this is big for fuel cell technology. Anders Nilsson, one of the scientists involved explained that although fuel cell technology has been around for the past 100 years or so, it hasn’t been able to make any strides in the technology.
First, a little background on fuel cells. Fuel cells are the way we create energy from hydrogen. A fuel cell creates electricity from a chemical reaction involving oxygen and hydrogen. One of the most exciting things about fuel cell technology is that the only byproducts are two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, also known as water! Platinum is currently the best catalyst we have to use with fuel cells. However if you’ve looked at the price of platinum recently, you know that the costs can be astounding for even just a plain platinum ring.
Many researchers have looked for ways around using a commodity as high priced as platinum for fuel cells. In 2008, researchers at Wuhan University in China found a way to bypass the platinum catalyst used in most fuel cells. They used a nickel anode and a silver cathode, and a powerful polymer membrane that can withstand the harshly acidic environment of the fuel cell. This acidic environment is the main reason that the high-cost precious metals are necessary in the first place. This polymer membrane has not yet proved to be even close in performance to platinum, but has proven that the idea itself has potential.
NH2 Hydrogen Fuel Cell Emission Free Tractor by New Holland
New Holland just released a prototype version of the NH2, a Hydrogen powered fuel cell tractor which is 100% emission free (at least once the energy is in the fuel cell that is). Based on their T6000 line, this tractor produces 106 horsepower from an electric motor running approximately 1.5 to 2 hours on a single hydrogen tank. While that doesn’t sound too impressive, it is still a prototype and the technology is still improving at a rapid pace.
This spells good news for greening the often overlooked commercial farming and construction industry. Heavy movers, construction equipment, generators and tractors are attributed with a great deal of pollution in the world, and you rarely hear about green environmental advances in these areas. They plan a release of the NH2 in 3 years, hopefully with even better specs.
[via inhabitat]
