With atmospheric carbon dioxide at record highs, the search for clean-energy alternatives to the use of fossil fuels is growing increasingly urgent.
One obstacle that researchers face is that current fuel-cell technology relies on the use of expensive metal catalysts like platinum to convert hydrogen into energy; however, a team from the University of Virginia's College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences has identified an organic molecule that could be an effective and less costly substitute for conventional metal catalysts.
The fuel cells that make electric vehicles and industrial and residential generators possible and that are needed to store energy generated by wind or the sun use metals like platinum to trigger the chemical reaction that splits fuel sources like hydrogen gas into protons and electrons that are then harnessed as electricity.
Until now, organic substitutes for rare-metal catalysts were not considered practical because the catalysis process causes them to break down into component parts that are no longer useful. In a paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, however, associate professors of chemistry Charles Machan and Michael Hilinski, along with Ph.D. students Emma Cook and Anna Davis, identify an organic molecule composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and fluorine that has the potential to be a practical substitute.
The molecule can not only initiate the reduction of oxygen—the reaction that takes place inside the fuel cell—Machan said; it can continue to react with the products of the reaction and then revert to its original state.
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