Membrane Breakthrough for Fuel Cells

Free registration required to read the story. “With oil near $50 a barrel, alternatives to gasoline are attracting more attention - including fuel cells, devices that convert hydrogen into electric current with no waste products except heat and pure water.

Fuel cells have found their way into power systems for laptop computers and into many experimental cars. The main drawback to automotive use of fuel cells, though, has been their cost, which at $100,000 can be 25 times the $4,000 for a gasoline engine of equal power. Lately, some companies, including Honda, have been trying to come up with cheaper versions of the most expensive part of a fuel cell: the membrane that takes the hydrogen fuel and separates it into protons and electrons.

This morning [Oct.5], a California company, PolyFuel, plans to announce that it has achieved a breakthrough in fuel-cell membranes by using an alternative material: a hydrocarbon that it says costs only about half as much per square meter.”