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Energy technology

Hydrogen quick and clean

Nature volume 442, pages 521–522 (2006)Cite this article

Systems for producing pure hydrogen for fuel cells from methanol run into problems with energy efficiency and short lifetimes. Unless, that is, you combine the right catalyst and the right purification membrane.

While the power demands of portable electronic gadgets — laptops, mobile telephones, iPods and the like — have exploded in the past few years, the storage capacity of the batteries used to power them has not kept pace. In a worldwide push to find alternative power sources, systems based on fuel-cell technologies, with their potentially much higher energy-storage densities, have been receiving considerable attention.

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  1. Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 600 South Mathews, Urbana, 61801, Illinois, USA

    Rich Masel

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  1. Rich Masel
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Masel, R. Hydrogen quick and clean. Nature 442, 521–522 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/442521a

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