Scientists build a better fuel cell

CALGARY, Alberta, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Canadian scientists say they have discovered a new material that can help increase the efficiency and decrease the cost of fuel cells.

University of Calgary chemists Jeff Hurd and Professor George Shimizu said they discovered a material that allows a fuel cell -- known as a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell -- to work at a higher temperature. That, they said, is extremely important in terms of increasing the efficiency and decreasing the cost of PEM fuel cells.

"This research will alter the way researchers have to this point perceived candidate materials for fuel cell applications," Shimizu said.

The study that included Ramanathan Vaidhyanathan and Venkataraman Thangadurai of the University of Calgary and Christopher Ratcliffe and Igor Moudrakovski of the Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences appears in the early online edition of the journal Nature Chemistry.