A team at Washington University in St. Louis has published a nanostructured-carbon design that lets low-temperature hydrogen fuel cells use dramatically less platinum while surviving accelerated stress tests equivalent to roughly 25,000 hours of operation, in a paper that could reshape the economics of powering AI data centres with fuel cells.
What they built
The McKelvey School of Engineering group, led by Prof. Wu, engineered a radially channelled carbon support with tightly controlled pore volume and size, then heated a platinum-cobalt catalyst on it to 1,000 degC. That produced ordered Pt-Co intermetallic nanoparticles under 5 nanometres, well-dispersed inside a support porous enough to keep mass transport high.
Performance
The catalyst retained 85% of initial performance after 150,000 harsh voltage cycles, breaking the long-standing activity-vs-stability trade-off in PGM fuel-cell design. The paper appeared in Nature Nanotechnology on August 6, 2026.
Why it matters
Platinum loading is the single biggest cost driver in low-temperature proton-exchange-membrane fuel cells. A durable, low-Pt design pushes hydrogen closer to commercial parity for data centres, heavy trucks and grid backup - the same load categories driving TRM's coverage of HRS and Baker Hughes' new hydrogen hubs.
Reporting based on coverage from ScienceDaily, WashU Source and Nature Nanotechnology.