Molecular Catalysis in a Fuel Cell

摘要

Molecular hydrogen is considered to be the most promising of chemical fuels in terms of removing our dependence on fossil fuels, but the development of cheap, efficient, fuel-cell systems has not yet been realized. Currently, fuel cells are based on the heterogeneous, homolytic splitting of H2 on a platinum surface, but these fuel cells have the obvious problem that Pt is both scarce and expensive. Furthermore, few improvements in efficiency have been achieved in over a hundred years, so a new model for fuel-cell catalysis is required to generate a fuel-cell-based economy. Though a few related systems have been reported, the successful construction of a new type of fuel cell has not been achieved to date.