Thomas Smith

Thomas Smith

As a collaboration between ACAL Energy and Manchester University this project aims to design, synthesise and analyse new non-platinum catalysts for use in the state-of-the-art FlowCath Fuel Cell. Modern hydrogen fuel cells use platinum as the major catalyst for the reduction of oxygen at the fuel cell cathode. This prolific use of platinum makes fuel cells too expensive for popular use. The FlowCath fuel cell aims to remove up to 80 % of the platinum used in a fuel cell through the use of non-platinum catalysts at the fuel cell cathode, thus greatly reducing the overall cost of the fuel cell, bringing this technology one step closer to wide spread use and commercialisation.