New Family of Non-Precious Metal Catalysts Outperform Platinum in Fuel Cells at 10% the Production Cost

Researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), and Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered a new family of non-precious metal catalysts based on ordered mesoporous porphyrinic carbons.

The finding, described in Nature's Scientific Reports, provides an important step towards circumventing the biggest obstacle to widespread- commercialization of fuel cell technology, the high cost and instability of platinum catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction at the cathode.

Fuel cells have many advantages compared to internal combustion engines or batteries, due to their high energy conversion efficiency and environmentally benign and quiet operation conditions.

New Family of Non-Precious Metal Catalysts Outperform Platinum in Fuel Cells at 10% the Production Cost