Chemists have developed a catalyst that improves the sensitivity of the standard PSA test over 100-fold. The catalyst is made of palladium nanocubes coated with iridium.

Engineers have developed a new approach to structuring the catalysts used in essential reactions in the chemical and energy fields. The advance offers a pathway for industries to wean themselves off of platinum, one of the scarcest metals in Earth’s crust.

A new fabrication technique that produces platinum hollow nanocages with ultra-thin walls could dramatically reduce the amount of the costly metal needed to provide catalytic activity in such applications as fuel cells.