If you want to buy an electric car in the U.S., there are more than a dozen options. If you want to buy a fuel cell car, there are three: the Honda Clarity, the Toyota Mirai, and the Hyundai ix35. But more are coming–and a new discovery in the lab might help the market expand faster.

Fuel cell cars run on hydrogen, and making hydrogen is a challenge. The traditional method of producing hydrogen (which is now typically sold to manufacturers for everything from refining metal to making margarine) starts with fossil fuels. If you heat up coal or natural gas you get hydrogen–but you also get carbon pollution. As an alternative, it’s possible to make hydrogen from water by splitting water molecules with electrolysis. It’s a clean process that produces zero pollution, but it also takes a lot of energy, and the resulting hydrogen is expensive. Catalysts like platinum can speed up the reaction and help save energy but are also expensive.

Read the source article at Fast Company