Hydrogels block harmful oxygen
Novel fuel cells feasible in the future
(June 15, 2015) An
international research team has found a way of protecting sensitive catalysts
from oxygen-caused damage. In the future, this could facilitate the creation of
hydrogen fuel cells with molecular catalysts or with biomolecules such as the hydrogenase
enzyme. To date, this could only be accomplished using the rare and expensive
precious metal platinum. Together with their French colleagues, researchers
from Bochum and Mülheim describe the way in which a hydrogel can serve as a
“protective shield” for biomolecules by two articles written in the journals
“Angewandte Chemie” and “The Journal of the American Chemical Society”.