A million electric cars could be on roads across North America before the end of the decade with the help of research by a team that includes Zhongwei Chen, a Waterloo chemical engineering professor, the United States Department of Energy and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Chen is part of a team led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory looking to develop non-precious materials to replace the expensive platinum catalysts in fuel cells.
“One of the biggest barriers to the adoption of fuel cells in vehicles is the cost of the units. The pure platinum needed for the catalysts in the cells contributes about 40 per cent of the total cost,” said Chen, who is also a member of the Waterloo Institute of Nanotechnology. “Platinum is so expensive, and is obviously a limited resource, we have to find a way to replace it if fuel cell cars are going to succeed." [news release]