As is often the case, researchers toiling in relative obscurity in a lab somewhere have a breakthrough that touches the lives of everyone on earth. That could well be what is happening at the University of Dayton, in Ohio, where an engineerig professor has made a discovery that could make fuel cells economical.
Hydrogen-powered fuel cells are believed to hold enormous promise as a power source for future generations. Think of a time when petroleum no longer dominates world affairs. Instead hydrogen is king. It is the most abundant gas in the universe and the simplest element known to humans.
Standing in the way has been platinum, an expensive catalyst needed to make fuel cells function. The eureka in Dayton has been the development of carbon nanotubes that could replace platinum and finally make fuel cells economical. In the future fuel cells generating electricity could power everything that presently requires gasoline.
Heading the work in Dayton is Liming Dai, a materials engineering professor. Dai and his colleagues make electrodes by depositing carbon-nanotube arrays on a composite film of polymer and carbon nanotubes. They claim that using the material as a cathode gives four times higher current densities than do conventional platinum-coated electrodes.
The auto industry has built a number of idea cars powered by fuel cells. They perform well but the obstacle to mass commercialization has been the cost of platinum. Hail hydrogen.
It has the highest energy content of any common fuel (about three times more than gasolne). It is safe and can be produced from a variety of sources, e.g. water, fossil fuels, and biomass, and, conveniently, is a byproduct of other chemical processes.