M. Simon came across this item, and submitted it to the comments section of last weekend's Earth Day post. It's worth highlighting:
"Many knowledgeable observers believe that perfluorinated [fuel cell] membranes will never be commercially viable for widespread, consumer use. Although these membranes worked in outer space, many believe that they will ultimately be unsuccessful — in our laptops, cell phones, and automobiles — here on earth.
Creating alternative membranes is an extremely challenging process, and in the ensuing decades, such efforts have met with little success. Recently, however, PolyFuel has developed a unique capability to directly engineer the nano-architectures and the chemical characteristics of a membrane based upon system-level requirements that has not only led to the rapid development of scores of new membranes — but ones which have exhibited breakthroughs in performance. Such “engineered membranes” are the future of fuel cells."