Hydrogen Mobility vs. Platinum Actuality

By Imran Last updated Aug 16, 2025

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Alstom’s hydrogen practice experiment has hit the buffers once more, with operators in Germany reverting to diesel as a result of alternative gasoline cells usually are not accessible. Solely 4 of the 14 Cascadia trains Decrease Saxony bought are in operation. It’s tempting to dismiss this as a easy provide chain hiccup, however the issue runs deeper. Following the thread again reveals not solely the weak point of hydrogen in transportation but additionally a structural materials constraint that makes it even much less viable.

The Coradia iLint trains had been all the time meant to be a flagship for hydrogen mobility. They use gasoline cells equipped by Cummins, constructed out of its Hydrogenics legacy in Canada and Europe. Every practice carries two modules rated at about 200 kW every. Gas cells of that scale require 0.4 to 0.6 grams of platinum per kilowatt to realize the sturdiness demanded in rail service. That works out to about 0.2 kg of platinum per practice. At in the present day’s costs, that prices about $8,700, round 5% of the price of the gasoline cell. It sounds small till you set it in opposition to world manufacturing.

On the coronary heart of each PEM gasoline cell sits a skinny membrane coated with platinum, and its function is each easy and irreplaceable. Platinum acts because the catalyst that splits incoming hydrogen molecules into protons and electrons. The protons migrate by way of the membrane whereas the electrons are compelled round an exterior circuit, producing usable electrical energy. On the opposite aspect of the membrane, platinum once more makes the response doable by rushing up the sluggish course of of mixing oxygen, protons, and electrons into water. These two reactions are basic to the system, and platinum’s distinctive floor chemistry permits them to occur at sensible charges and with the required sturdiness. With out platinum, the cell both fails to run effectively or falls aside too shortly. That catalytic perform is why each gram of platinum in a gasoline cell stack is indispensable, and why gasoline cells can’t escape their dependence on a scarce and unstable steel.

The platinum market produces about 250 to 280 tons per yr. Roughly a 3rd goes into automotive catalysts, primarily for diesel vehicles and vans. One other quarter goes into jewellery. Industrial catalysts in refining and chemical substances take up near a fifth. Glass and electronics take a smaller share. Gas cells and electrolysers collectively barely register at 1 or 2 tons a yr.

In catalytic converters for vehicles and vans, platinum is likely one of the metals that makes fashionable combustion tolerable below air high quality guidelines. When exhaust gases go away the engine, they carry unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides. Platinum gives lively websites on its floor that break down these pollution by way of redox reactions on the excessive temperatures of the exhaust stream. Hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide are oxidized into carbon dioxide and water, whereas nitrogen oxides are lowered into nitrogen. Platinum works in live performance with palladium and rhodium, however in diesel engines platinum is the simplest catalyst due to the cooler and oxygen-rich exhaust. The finely dispersed platinum particles can face up to the thermal biking and chemical poisons that may destroy lesser supplies. With out platinum, diesel engines couldn’t meet emissions laws, which is why automakers purchase it at nearly any value and why the demand from this sector dominates world consumption.

In refineries, platinum is the quiet workhorse of the catalytic reforming items that flip low-value naphtha into high-octane gasoline and feedstocks for petrochemicals. Platinum atoms dispersed on alumina help surfaces present lively websites the place hydrocarbon molecules are rearranged, dehydrogenated, or cyclized below managed warmth and stress. This not solely upgrades gasoline high quality by elevating the octane quantity but additionally generates streams of hydrogen gasoline that the refinery reuses in hydrocracking and desulfurization. Platinum’s stability below harsh chemical and thermal circumstances is important, since these reactors run repeatedly for months at a time and downtime prices thousands and thousands. Whereas small quantities of rhenium or tin are sometimes added to tune efficiency, platinum stays the irreplaceable core of the catalyst mattress. With out it, the refining system that underpins each fuels and petrochemicals would seize up, which is why this sector treats platinum as an absolute necessity somewhat than a discretionary expense.

South Africa provides about 70 % of mined platinum. Its mining sector is suffering from electrical energy shortages, floods, strikes, and political bottlenecks. Recycling provides solely a fraction and has fallen to its lowest degree in over a decade. The result’s a platinum market that’s undersupplied by practically 1,000,000 ounces per yr, which is about 31 tons. Costs have climbed to eleven-year highs, and lease charges spiked to ranges extra acquainted in distressed bond markets.

Recycling needs to be the stress valve for a constrained platinum market, however in observe restoration charges are low and unstable. Most platinum recycling comes from end-of-life catalytic converters, the place the dense ceramic monoliths might be processed to reclaim the dispersed steel. Even there, assortment inefficiencies, export restrictions, and processing bottlenecks imply massive fractions by no means make it again into the provision chain. In different purposes like gasoline cells, electronics, and glass tools, restoration is even worse as a result of the platinum is both too finely distributed, too contaminated, or uneconomic to extract. The result’s that annual recycling contributes solely a small fraction of the roughly 250 tons of platinum demand, and volumes have been falling, not rising. That leaves major mining in South Africa and Russia to hold the load, which magnifies provide threat and retains gasoline cells uncovered to the volatility of a skinny and fragile market.

Once you take a look at which industries are prepared to pay most for platinum, gasoline cells come final. Automakers can pay no matter it takes to fulfill emissions laws. Refineries can’t function with out platinum catalysts and each day offline prices thousands and thousands. Specialty glass and electronics producers haven’t any alternative materials for his or her high-temperature platinum instruments. Jewellery consumption is elastic, so it falls away when costs climb, releasing up some provide for industries that can’t do with out. Hydrogen gasoline cells sit on the finish of this queue, with restricted volumes and clients delicate to value.

That is the place the weak point of hydrogen in transportation turns into clear. Batteries require metals as nicely, however there’s a variety of decisions. Nickel and cobalt might be averted completely by shifting to LFP chemistry, which is already mainstream in China and more and more within the west. Lithium itself might be substituted in lots of purposes with sodium-ion, which is now in business manufacturing. Manganese and iron are plentiful. In batteries there are trade-offs, however there is no such thing as a single non-substitutable steel whose absence ends the expertise. In PEM gasoline cells platinum is that single level of failure.

Hydrogen for transportation was already deprived by poor power effectivity, excessive operational prices, greater infrastructure prices, and lack of market traction in comparison with batteries. The platinum provide constraint makes it worse. Each extra megawatt of gasoline cell capability consumes extra of a scarce steel that different industries will all the time outbid hydrogen for. Scaling hydrogen mobility solely deepens the reliance on a uncooked materials with no substitute, restricted suppliers, and continual deficits.

Transit operators which have bought hydrogen bus fleets are going to be working into this very same downside within the coming months and years. Gas cells sometimes solely final 2-3 years per EU knowledge, and with platinum shortages, gasoline cell distributors will probably be struggling to provide replacements. Warranties are going to be problematic as nicely, with greater prices for warranties for brand spanking new buses.

Pivot desk of hydrogen transportation play standing by writer

That is simply extra of the massacre in hydrogen transportation this yr. I not too long ago up to date my monitoring spreadsheet of hydrogen transportation companies. 41 of the 164 have both gone out of enterprise or dropped hydrogen. At that, lots of the companies haven’t stated something about hydrogen not too long ago, and are seemingly doing quiet pivots away from it which can solely change into evident later. I believe Alstom will probably be dropping hydrogen shortly.

The return of Decrease Saxony’s trains to diesel is symbolic. It reveals how fragile hydrogen mobility is when even a handful of trains can’t be saved in service due to lacking gasoline cells. The irony is that the extra the sector tries to scale, the sooner it runs into the platinum wall. Battery electrical trains are already frequent, cheaper to function, and freed from this constraint. The lesson is evident. Hydrogen for transportation isn’t just an inefficient thought. It’s one which collides with the onerous geology of platinum provide, making it a useless finish. The way forward for transport is electrical and it’ll run on plentiful supplies, not scarce catalysts.

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