March 1, 2005

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LONDON - “Fuel cells: iron is the new platinum,” is the slightly alchemistic-sounding headline in the Feb. 10 online “highlights” page of “Nature”describing research into new electrocatalytic materials.

The paper in the journal’s “letters to nature” section, “Synthesis of the H-cluster framework of iron-only hydrogenase,” describes work in the UK, Italy and Germany that the authors say “will help guide the design of new materials for hydrogen production or uptake.”

The 10 authors from the Biological Chemistry Department at the John Innes Centre, Norwich; the Biotechnology and Biosciences Department at the University of Milan-Bicocca; the Physics Department, Washington State University, Richland; and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Chemical Sciences Division report on the “assembly of the iron-sulphur framework of the active site of iron-only hydrogenase (the H-cluster) and show that it functions as an electrocatalyst for proton reduction.”

Summarizing the highly technical paper, the authors say they have achieved “the first synthesis of a metallosulphur cluster core involved in small-molecule catalysis.” The availability of an “active, free-standing analogue of the H-cluster may enable us to develop useful electrocatalytic materials for application in, for example, reversible hydrogen fuel cells.”

They add parenthetically that platinum is currently “the preferred electrocatalyst for such applications, but it is expensive, limited in availability and, in the long term, unsustainable,” citing a September 2003 paper from the UK’s Department of Transportation as source for this assertion.

Contact: Prof. Chris Pickett, John Innes Centre, e-mail chris.pickett@bbsrc.ac.uk.