Fuel Cells and Precious-Metal Catalysts

Abstract

The news article by Robert F. Service about fuel cells (“Energy,” 30 July, p. [682][1]) does not address an important problem associated with their mass use. Fuel cells require precious-metal (usually platinum) catalysts to operate at reasonable temperatures. But how much platinum—in great demand as an industrial catalyst—would be required for a world fleet of fuel cell-powered cars? Platinum has a crustal abundance of only 37 parts per billion ([1][2]), and total annual production of virgin platinum is less than 100 metric tons ([2][3]). If each fuel cell-powered car required only a gram of platinum (which, I think, is a low estimate), it would take 200 metric tons of platinum to power the U.S. fleet of cars alone. Although platinum can be recycled, world-scale fuel cell production for automotive and home use would probably require more than the entire annual production of virgin platinum. Because this metal is also an important industrial catalyst, demand would send the price of platinum through the roof. This would destroy any cost savings obtained from mass production of fuel cells and bring us right back where we are now—with fuel cells that are too expensive to be competitive in the mass market. 1. [↵][4]1. M. Winter , WebElements, available at [www.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/web-elements][5]. 2. [↵][6]1. N. N. Greenwood, 2. A. Earnshaw , Chemistry of the Elements (Pergamon, Oxford, 1984), ed. 1. p. 1328, 1331. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.285.5428.682 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [5]: http://www.shef.ac.uk/chemistry/web-elements [6]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text