Platinum Metals Review - Volume 29, Issue 3, 1985

The chloralkali industry is one of the largest single electricity consumers in the world, and electricity costs can account for about sixty per cent of the running costs of a modern plant. This article, which is based in part upon a paper given at the Third London International Chlorine Symposium, organised by the Society of Chemical Industry, the Chlorine Institute and the Royal Society of Chemistry, which was held in London during June, considers the use in membrane cells of noble metal coated cathodes developed by Johnson Matthey and indicates some of the savings that can result. These coated cathodes, which are being evaluated by a number of chloralkali plant manufacturers, appear to act in a catalytic manner to reduce the cathodic hydrogen overpotential and thus the energy consumption.

Phosphoric acid fuel cells are approaching commercial reality, especially in the United States of America and Japan. Without exception they are catalysed by platinum-containing catalysts; in view of the probable future development of such cells and the predicted size of the market for them it is necessary to consider the availability of platinum for this purpose. This article is based, in part, upon a paper presented at an international workshop on trends in research and applications of fuel cells, which was organised by Unesco in co-operation with the Commission of the European Communities, held at Ravello, Italy, during June. It examines the scale of this potential requirement against a background of existing applications of the metal and the way in which it will be used and recycled. Having discussed some recent developments it concludes that supplies will be adequate to meet even the most optimistic projections of fuel cell market penetration.

Over one hundred and fifty participants met at The Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, on March 26th to 29th of this year to attend an international conference sponsored by the Institute of Physics, the Society of Chemical Industry, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Bunsengesellschaft für Physikalische Chemie, the International Association for Hydrogen Energy, and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, to consider metal hydrides. Some of the papers concerned the platinum metals.