FUEL CELLS GEARING UP TO POWER AUTO INDUSTRY
UH Team’s Breakthrough in Fuel Cell Research May Ease Reliance
on Gasoline
HOUSTON, October 29, 2007 – The average price for all types
of gasoline is holding steady around $2.95 per gallon nationwide,
but the pain at the pump might be short-lived as research from the
University of Houston may eliminate one of the biggest hurdles to
the wide-scale production of fuel cell-powered vehicles.
Peter Strasser, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular
engineering, led the research team in discovering a method to make
a fuel cell more efficient and less expensive. The initiative is
one of four ongoing fuel cell projects in development at the Cullen
College of Engineering at UH.
A fuel cell converts chemically stored energy directly into electricity
and is already two to three times more efficient in converting fuel
to power than the internal combustion engine usually found in automobiles.
“A fuel cell is a power generation device that converts energy
into electricity with very high efficiencies without combustion,
flame, noise or vibration,” Strasser said. “If a fuel
cell is run on hydrogen and air, as planned for automotive fuel
cells, hydrogen and oxygen molecules combine to provide electricity
with water as the only byproduct.”
The key to making a fuel cell work is a catalyst, which facilitates
the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen. The most common, but expensive,
catalyst is platinum. Currently, the amount of platinum catalyst
required per kilowatt to power a fuel cell engine is about 0.5 to
0.8 grams, or .018 to .028 ounces. At a cost of about $1,500 per
ounce, the platinum catalyst alone would cost between $2,300 to
$3,700 to operate a small, 100-kilowatt two- or four-door vehicle
– a significant cost given that an entire 100-kilowatt gasoline
combustion engine costs about $3,000. To make the transition to
fuel cell-powered vehicles possible, the automobile industry wants
something better and cheaper.
“The automobile companies have been asking for a platinum-based
catalyst that is four times more efficient, and, therefore, four
times cheaper, than what is currently available,” Strasser
said. “That’s the magic number.”
Strasser and his team, which includes Ratndeep Srivastava, a graduate
student, Prasanna Mani, a postdoctoral researcher, and Nathan Hahn,
a 2007 UH graduate, have met and, seemingly, exceeded this “magic
number.” The team created a catalyst that uses less platinum,
making it at least four times – and up to six times –
more efficient and cheaper than existing catalysts at comparable
power levels.
“We have found a low platinum alloy that we pre-treat in
a special way to make it very active for the reaction of oxygen
to water on the surface of our catalyst,” Strasser said. “A
more active catalyst means that we get more electricity, or energy,
for the amount of platinum used and the time it’s used for.
With a material four to six times more efficient, the cost of the
catalyst has reached an important target set by industrial fuel
cell developers and the U.S. Department of Energy.”
Although more testing of how the durability of this new catalyst
compares to pure platinum is necessary, the preliminary results
look promising.
“The initial results show that durability is improved over
pure platinum, but only longer-term testing can tell,” Strasser
said.
Long-term results may take some time, but industry expert Hubert
Gasteiger, a leading scientist in fuel research with Aeta S.p.A.
in Italy, is already excited.
“The automotive cost targets, which were developed several
years ago, require that the activity of the available platinum catalysts
would need to be increased by a factor of four to six,” Gasteiger
said. “The novel catalyst concept developed by Professor Strasser’s
group has been demonstrated to provide an enhancement factor of
greater than four, and, thereby, are very promising materials to
achieve the platinum metals cost targets of typical hydrogen-oxygen
automotive fuel cells. This is a very exciting and new development,
even though more work is required to assure that the durability
of these novel catalysts is equally superior to the current carbon-supported
platinum catalysts.”
Strasser’s preliminary results and research have been published
in the October 2007 issues of Angewandte Chemie International Edition
and Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Sponsored by $1.5 million in grants from the U.S. Department of
Energy, National Science Foundation, major automotive fuel cell
developers and NASA through the Houston Advanced Research Center,
Strasser hopes companies will begin introducing fuel cell-powered
cars within the next decade.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research
and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers
and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate,
civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university
in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and
service with more than 35,000 students.
About the Cullen College of Engineering
UH Cullen College of Engineering has produced five U.S. astronauts,
ten members of the National Academy of Engineering, and degree programs
that have ranked in the top ten nationally. With more than 2,600
students, the college offers accredited undergraduate and graduate
degrees in biomedical, chemical, civil and environmental, electrical
and computer, industrial, and mechanical engineering. It also offers
specialized programs in aerospace, materials, petroleum engineering
and telecommunications.
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at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.
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