[extropy-chat] Fuel cell vehicles arriving in 2005
Eugen Leitl
eugen at leitl.org
Mon Jan 10 14:35:14 UTC 2005
On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 08:41:13PM -0500, Brent Neal wrote:
> >Why bother, I wonder, direct-alcohol fuel cells don't need no steenkin
> >reformers (of course methanol reforms completely cleanly).
>
>
> The problem is that the catalyst membranes used to rip the
> protons off of light alcohols are prohibitively expensive
> for large wattage applications. Works fine in Toshiba's
This is a current chemistry/engineering limitation. There's no physical
reason for having expensive catalysts/high proton mobility membrane
materials.
> little cell phone fuel cells (on the order of a few mm^2),
> but I doubt that they've been able to manufacture more
> than a handful of membranes large enough for a car.
How much car do you need to move a single primate? Right now an SUV is
somewhere between 2 and 3 tons, which is ridiculous.
> IMO, DMFC catalysts represent one of the defining materials
> engineering problems of this decade.
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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