Nanoalloys ... as effective as pure platinum in fuel cells
(The headline is just too misleading IMHO.)
http://www.chalmers.se/en/departments/physics/news/Pages/Nanoalloys-ten-times-as-effective-as-pure-platinum-in-fuel-cells.aspx
[font face=Serif][font size=5]Nanoalloys ten times as effective as pure platinum in fuel cells[/font]
[font size=4]A new type of nanocatalyst can result in the long-awaited commercial breakthrough for fuel cell cars. Research results from Chalmers University of Technology and Technical University of Denmark show that it is possible to significantly reduce the need for platinum, a precious and rare metal, by creating a nanoalloy using a new production technique. The technology is also well suited for mass production.[/font]
[font size=3]A nano solution is needed to mass-produce resource-efficient catalysts for fuel cells. With our method, only one tenth as much platinum is needed for the most demanding reactions. This can reduce the amount of platinum required for a fuel cell by about 70 per cent, says Björn Wickman, researcher at the Department of Physics at Chalmers.
If this level of efficiency is possible to achieve in a fuel cell, the amount of required platinum would be comparable to what is used in an ordinary car catalytic converter.
Hopefully, this will allow fuel cells to replace fossil fuels and also be a complement to battery-powered cars, says Björn Wickman.
[/font][/font]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/admi.201700311