Toyota minivehicle unit Daihatsu Motor on Friday said it had developed new fuel cell technology that eliminates the need for platinum, the precious metal that has until now been an essential material in the electrode catalyst in conventional fuel cells.
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The new technology also fixes hydrazine hydrate inside the fuel tank to ensure its safe use as a fuel, resulting in no CO2 emissions at all, the automaker said.
“This proprietary fuel cell technology provides numerous benefits, including resource conservation, low cost, high output, and safe and easy fuel handling,” Daihatsu said.
It said the large amount of platinum – at least 100g per vehicle – that must be used has in current fuel cells has become one of the factors hindering the widespread adoption of fuel cell vehicles.
The newly developed technology uses alkaline electrolyte membranes which allows inexpensive metals such as cobalt and nickel to be used as an electrode catalyst, instead of platinum, and other inexpensive materials to be used in the separator and other component parts.
Conventional fuel cells that use liquid fuels such as methanol have poor reactivity and thus cannot produce the output necessary for automobiles. Using hydrazine hydrate, which possesses excellent reactivity, as the fuel and a newly developed electrode catalyst, the new fuel cell can produce a high output of 0.5W/cm2 which is comparable to the output obtained from a hydrogen fuel cell using platinum.
