8WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG APRIL 6, 2009

NEWS OF THE WEEK

A NEW SYNTHETIC ROUTE yields inexpensive iron-based catalysts for fuel cells that are nearly as active catalytically as the expensive platinum

catalysts normally used in those electrochemical devices, scientists in Canada report in Science (2009, 324, 71). The study advances efforts to come up with low-cost substitutes for precious-metal catalysts and may help lower the high price of fuel cells for automotive applications.

A key obstacle to widely commercializing hydrogen-fueled electric automobiles is the cost of the fuel cells that convert hydrogen into electric power. Polymer-electrolyte-membrane (PEM) fuel cells, the type widely studied for powering cars, generally include carbon-supported platinum (Pt/C) catalysts to mediate reactions at the electrodes. For years, researchers have worked on lowering overall costs by replacing platinum with less expensive substitutes such as iron, which

is generally considered a leading candidate. But until now, iron-based catalysts have remained too sluggish, especially for driving the oxygen-reduction reaction, which converts oxygen to water at the cathode.

Pt/C catalysts can mediate that reaction at a “turnover frequency” of roughly 25 reactions per active catalyst site per second. In contrast, iron-based catalysts have tended to exhibit turnover frequencies closer to 0.4 per second.

Researchers at the National Institute for Scientific Research, in Quebec, now describe a synthesis that yields iron-based catalysts for the cathode of PEM fuel cells that are comparable in activity, initially, with ones made from platinum.

Rather than using common wet-impregnation meth-ods to load iron into carbon supports, Michel Lefèvre, Eric Proietti, Jean-Pol Dodelet, and coworkers used an intense dry-mixing method to react carbon, ferrous acetate, and phenanthroline, and then they subjected the product to heat treatments and subsequent reaction with ammonia. That procedure yields catalytically active iron cations coordinated to pyridinic groups within the micropores of the carbon support, the group proposes. The team notes that after extended use in a fuel cell, the catalyst’s high initial activity decreases significantly.

In an accompanying commentary in Science, MIT’s Hubert A. Gasteiger and Nenad M. Markovic of Ar-gonne National Laboratory remark that “despite remaining challenges, these recent successes bring us closer to completing our quest to put PEM fuel-cell technology on the road.”—MITCH JACOBY

J APAN’S LARGEST drug company, Takeda Phar-maceutical, is promoting several of its U.S. execu-tives as it transfers decision-making authority for

drug development and marketing out of Japan.The company’s global headquarters for drug develop-

ment will now be Deerfield, Ill., where its North Ameri-can operations headquarters are located. Takeda says it employs 5,500 people in North America, but does not disclose how many of its U.S. employees are in R&D.

Takeda veteran Alan MacKenzie has been given a new role as head of the firm’s marketing, commercial operations, and medical affairs worldwide, except in Ja-pan. MacKenzie has been with Takeda for 24 years and until last month headed the company’s North Ameri-can operations. He will report to Takeda President Yasuchika Hasegawa.

Shinji Honda, whose previous job was to head Take-

da’s foreign-business planning, will replace MacKenzie as head of North American operations. Nancy Joseph-Ridge, currently in charge of Takeda’s R&D operations in the U.S., will assume an expanded role as leader of the company’s drug development activities.

Fumiyoshi Sakai, an analyst who covers the Japanese drug and health care sector at Credit Suisse Securi-ties in Tokyo, says Takeda is under intense pressure to come up with new drugs because the patent on its best-selling drug, Actos, will expire in 2011. Actos is pre-scribed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Moving drug development responsibility to the U.S. will help the company in its dealings with FDA, whose stamp of approval is critical to the international success of new drugs, Sakai adds. Other leading Japanese drug companies such as Astellas shifted product develop-ment responsibility to the U.S. in recent years, he notes. Last month, Takeda suffered a setback when FDA ruled that the company’s approval request for the new diabe-tes drug alogliptin did not contain enough clinical data.

Despite its decision to boost its North American op-erations, Sakai says, Takeda remains at heart a Japanese company with a relatively limited amount of interna-tional business experience. Not that it fundamentally matters, he adds. “At the end of the day, what counts in a drug company is whether you have new products.”—JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY

A commercial porous carbon material (top) can be converted into an uncommonly active iron-based fuel-cell catalyst (bottom).

TAKEDA ELEVATES U.S. OPERATIONS

DRUG DEVELOPMENT: U.S. division takes lead in bringing

new drugs to market

LOW-COST IRON FOR FUEL CELLS

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: New synthetic route produces highly active

non-precious-metal catalysts

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