Israel – GenCell Energy announces the successful completion of a catalyst that is not based on noble metals (palladium). The process by which the new catalyst accelerates chemical reactions is identical to the process using a catalyst based on noble metals.
The Company estimates that this new development will significantly reduce the manufacturing cost of each fuel cell stack. Rami Reshef, CEO of GenCell: ‘The current advancement began in 2014, when GenCell successfully removed the noble metal platinum from its nickel-based catalyst compound. I estimate that when hydrogen technology achieves its full momentum, the demand for noble metals will rise dramatically. and in parallel their prices will soar. this development will afford a prominent competitive advantage to those products that are produced with no noble metals.’
CTO Gennadi Finkelshtain: ‘Our scientists have designed and synthesized a highly active noble metal-free catalyst to speed up the reactions occurring at the anode and cathode of the fuel cell. The noble metal-free full size fuel cell module is being successfully tested according to standard test procedures and performances are close to standards.’
Alkaline
Further explained Finkelshtain: ‘In the longer term, platinum shortage is likely to lead to production limitations for PEM fuel cell manufacturers. As all acid-based low temperature fuel cell technologies require platinum or platinum group metals in their construction. As alkaline fuel cells do not have this limitation, any restrictions imposed by platinum availability will not affect the Company’s pricing.’
