One potential use for the abundance of natural gas discovered in shale deposits across the United States—and potentially in other countries around the world—could be producing hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles.
But such fuel cells remain expensive, in part because they use the precious metal platinum to facilitate the chemical reactions that produce electricity within the cell. A new method for quickly and cheaply depositing ultrathin layers of platinum, described today in the journal Science, might make it practical to reduce the amount of platinum used in fuel cells, thereby lowering the cost of fuel cells significantly.
Current methods for applying atom-thick layers of platinum are slow and complicated. The new approach is “incredibly cheap and easy to implement,” says Thomas Moffat, a metallurgy researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, who led the work.
The approach might make it possible to manufacture fuel cells that have significantly thinner layers of platinum than what’s typically used now. GM, which is developing fuel cell vehicles, wouldn’t comment on how much platinum in used in its current fuel cell prototypes, but Charles Freese, general director of GM Fuel Cells, says: “This is an interesting approach that could eventually contribute to making fuel cells commercially viable.”