Johnson Matthey (JM) has long made a good business monetising fallen asteroids, or rather the metals inside them.
For much of the past half century, this 200-year-old-plus British company has used those metals to help reduce emissions on vehicles by making catalytic convertors. Now it wants to pivot its know-how of so-called platinum group metals to ramp up its zero-emission fuel cell business, targeting primarily heavy trucks. This would have been a neat transition if it hadn’t been for the company’s aborted attempt to get into the battery materials business, which ended back in May with a £50 million bill and some hurt pride after selling its operations to Australian outfit EV Metals.
JM’s decision to go all in on fuel cells and repurpose its Royston, Cambridge, catalytic converter factory coincided with the appointment of a new CEO, Liam Condon, who moved from the giant Germany pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Bayer in May.
JM should never have left the world of asteroids, Condon told investors back in May. “We got into battery materials pretty late. It was never a core competency,” he said. “Unfortunately, we realised too late how expensive it would be and what meagre returns we would get.” On the other hand, fuel cells, or rather the membrane and catalysts at the heart of the fuel cell, is right in JM’s wheelhouse. “This is hardcore metals chemistry. This really goes to the fundament of what we do,” Condon said.
Founder Percival Johnson started his gold assaying business – testing for purity - in 1817 before expanding into other metals, including platinum, with the help of George Matthey, who joined as an apprentice in 1838. In the 20th century, JM’s work using platinum for the catalyst layers in fuel cells won the company the contract to supply NASA for the Bacon fuel cells used to generate electricity on Apollo 11, the first to land on the moon.
Of the 1000 parts that makes up the modern hydrogen fuel cell, JM makes just three – the membrane and the two catalyst layers: anode and cathode. However, “this is where the magic literally happens,” Condon said. The polymer electrolyte membrane, or PEM, is the thin layer through which positively charged ions pass. The platinum is coated very thinly on the two catalyst layers that create the reaction to turn hydrogen into electricity.
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