

Chevrolet Equinox fuel cell vehicle  (Source: DailyTech)
New catalyst is 2000 times more tolerant of carbon monoxide






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Hardly call it a breakthrough
By trisct on 8/3/2010 10:43:58 AM , Rating: 2
More of an incremental step in materials science, useful for a small percentage of possible fuel sources for an experimental product.

We hear about breakthrough discoveries in energy production almost every day. None of them are more than incremental improvements. A breakthrough is supposed to be a revolutionary discovery that will result in lasting change - I doubt this is ever going to excite many people outside of oil company laboratories.

By MastermindX on 8/3/2010 1:04:29 PM , Rating: 3
New catalyst is 2000 times more tolerant of carbon monoxide

A breakthrough is any improvement that is order of magnitude larger than regular improvements.

For exemple, according the Moore's law:
The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit double approximately every two years

So, if a new process allows to, let say, multiply by 100 every 2 years, that would be breakthrough.

Now, I don't know what kind of improvement research on catalyst yields, but I'd be really surprised to see anything higher than 2-3 times better. Certainly nowhere near the 2000 times better stated on this. So yes, as far as I'm concerned, this is breakthrough.

It's not because you don't care about a discovery it shouldn't be called a breakthrough.

