VATIS UPDATE Article

Scientist Yushan Yan from the University of Delaware, the United States, believes that fuel-cell vehicles are the way to go, because they best preserve the advantages of gasoline automobiles: low upfront cost, long driving range and fast refueling. But he also believes that a new fuel-cell technology may be necessary. For Yan, that approach is a new twist on traditional fuel cells, known as proton exchange membrane fuel cells, or PEMFCs, which rely on costly platinum-based catalysts.

Yan and his research team are pursuing an alternative technology, the hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cell (HEMFC), because of its inherent cost advantages. He sees the rationale for this proposed switch as a matter of very simple arithmetic. Yan views as a roadmap to a unified strategy for HEMFC zero-emission cars based on three arguments.

“First, to become a commercial reality, fuel-cell engines have to be at cost parity with their gasoline counterparts and moving from an acid platform with the PEMFC to a base system with the HEMFC will enable a collateral benefit in bringing down all of the associated costs, said,” said Yan. Finally, Yan warns that it is insufficient just to have a lower cost.