NANOTUBE CATALYSTS
Bethany A. Halford · Chemical & Engineering News · 2009
CARBON NANOTUBES doped with nitrogen have the potential to replace the pricey platinum catalysts used to reduce oxygen in fuel cells, according to research from scientists in Ohio ( Science 2009, 323, 760). The finding could bring down the cost of fuel cells, a promising energy technology that’s had trouble breaking into large-scale applications—such as automobiles—because of costly catalysts and durability issues. A team led by Liming Dai of the University of Dayton discovered that a forest of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, in which some of the carbon atoms have been swapped with nitrogen, can reduce oxygen in alkaline solutio n more effectively than the platinum catalysts that have been favored in fuel cells since the 1960s. Furthermore, the nanotube catalysts aren’t susceptible to the carbon monoxide poisoning that’s known to deactivate platinum catalysts. Dai attributes the high activity of the N-doped nanotube catalyst to the electron-accepting ability of the nitrogen atoms, which creates net positive ...