Platinum Metals Review - Volume 40, Issue 4, 1996

The direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) has been considered as the ideal fuel cell system since it produces electric power by the direct conversion of the methanol fuel at the fuel cell anode. This is more attractive than the conventional hydrogen fuelled cells, particularly for transportation applications, which rely on bulky and often unresponsive reformer systems to convert methanol, or other hydrocarbon fuels, to hydrogen. However, commercialisation of tho DMFC has been impeded by its poor performance compared with hydrogen/air systems, the major limitation being the anode performance which requires highly efficient methanol oxidation catalysts. Such catalyst materials have been sought, and it appears that only platinum-based materials show reasonable activity and the required stability. The recent application of proton exchange membrane electrolyte materials has extended the operational temperature of DMFCs beyond those attainable with traditional liquid electrolytes, and this has led to major improvements in performance over the last five years. This article describes some key work tackling the above limitations and suggests that the DMFC is approaching the stage where it may become a commercially viable alternative to hydrogen/air systems.

The Dalton Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry held the Sixth International Conference on the Chemistry of the Platinum Group Metals at the University of York from the 22nd to the 26th July 1996. Previous meetings have been held in St. Andrews (1993), Cambridge (1990) and Sheffield (1987). Over 250 delegates from 26 countries attended the programme of 41 lectures and 190 posters.

The hydration of nitriles to amides is one of the basic transformations in organic chemistry However, it is not generally appreciated how difficult this transformation is to carry out efficiently since amides themselves undergo further hydrolysis to the acid. While nicotinamide and acrylamide are usually manufactured from the corresponding nitriles using metallic copper heterogeneous catalysts, applications in the fine chemicals industry are rare. Now, the use of a new platinum-containing homogeneous catalyst applicable to complex organic nitriles containing sensitive functional groups will create an opportunity for nitrile hydration in the fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

In 1844 Karl Karlovitch Klaus, then an unknown professor at the University of Kazan, reported his discovery of a new platinum metal which he named ruthenium, afer Ruthenia, the latinised name for Russia. Besides studying the characteristics of ruthenium, Klaus conducted a wide ranging investigation of rhodium, iridium, osmium, and to a lesser extent, palladium and platinum. Thus, he may be regarded as the creator of the chemistry of the platinum metals, and the one who introduced the concept of the structure of the “double salts and bases” of platinum, which was developed some forty years later by Alfred Werner in his co-ordination theory Klaus also discovered the similarities and differences between elements in the triads: ruthenium-rhodium-palladium and osmium-iridium-platinum, so providing the justification for Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev to include all six platinum metals in Group VIII of the Periodic System. Klaus’s work thus marked an epoch in the investigation of the platinum metals, especially of ruthenium – the last one to be discovered.