News

Improved Catalyst for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

March 05, 2006 by Jeff Shepard

A team of Canadian and Chinese chemists led by Viola Birss at the University of Calgary has designed a relatively simple production process, using acetone as the solvent and ethylene glycol as the reducing agent, to create a methanol oxidation catalyst consisting of platinum, ruthenium and iridium (PtRuIr). The catalyst comprises PtRuIr nanoparticles (about 1nm in diameter) dispersed on the surface of carbon nanotubes.

Methanol has a number of advantages over hydrogen for powering fuel cells, including ease of storage and transport and a higher energy density. But current DMFCs, which work by oxidizing methanol at a catalyst-coated anode to produce CO2 and electrons, are less efficient and limited in the amount of power they generate. And methanol oxidation catalysts, most of which are based on platinum, can be difficult and expensive to produce.

As reported in Chemistry World, the researchers claim that this catalyst was highly efficient at oxidizing methanol and could generate an electric current over four times larger than that generated by a commercially available catalyst. Further investigation showed that this high level of efficiency was due to the small size of the PtRuIr nanoparticles and their broad dispersal over the carbon nanotubes.