First published in Cleantech magazine, June/July 2007. ©  Cleantech Investor Ltd.

AIM listed Acta manufactures platinum-free catalysts which perform as effectively as platinum based catalysts. The Italian based company has developed catalysts to produce hydrogen from ammonia and ethanol. Acta’s technology for ammonia permits a fuel cell car to store ammonia in its tank and use Acta’s onboard electrolyser catalyst to break it down into nitrogen and hydrogen. Acta demonstrated its ammonia electrolyser catalyst at Fuel Cell Expo in Tokyo earlier this year. Prototype catalysts are in trials with a number of automotive companies. Acta supplied fuel cell electrodes activated with its HYPERMEC catalysts to a team from Hochschule Offenberg – University of Applied Sciences. The fuel cell electrodes were used in a vehicle which was able to run directly on 1ethanol fuel. The Hochschule Offenberg team built the first 50W ethanol fuel cell stack, which was used in a car which was demonstrated at the Shell Eco-Marathon race in France in May this year.