Replace the lithium battery in your pocket with fuel cells

A new catalyst without any solvents or additives to produce hydrogen at room temperature gave hope putting hydrogen fuel cell in the pocket to replace lithium batteries to power a number of mobile devices. Edman Tsang from Oxford University Department of Chemistry and colleagues are developing a technology that utilizes a catalyst to produce hydrogen from formic acid that promises more durable energy and environmentally friendly than regular lithium batteries.

The preliminary results paper reported in Nature Nanotechnology, explaining the possibility of putting hydrogen fuel cell in the pocket will be soon realized. They put a single atomic layer of palladium atoms onto silver nanoparticles that allow for increasing the properties of palladium catalyst and the conversion of formic acid to hydrogen and carbon dioxide at room temperature.

The researchers say that the formic acid storage easier and safer than hydrogen. Production of hydrogen from liquid fuels are stored in a disposable or recycled cartridge. In addition, the gas stream composed hydrogen and carbon dioxide are almost free from catalyst-poisoning carbon monoxide. Its no need clean-up processes. Researchers have been working for catalyst characterization using atom probe tomography.