Data centers are chewing through more electricity, and a team at Washington University in St. Louis says hydrogen fuel cells could take some of that load off the grid.

Researchers led by Gang Wu at the university’s McKelvey School of Engineering have developed a new nanostructured carbon design for fuel-cell catalysts that uses very small amounts of platinum while staying stable and efficient. Their findings were published on August 6, 2026, in Nature Nanotechnology.

The Electric Power Research Institute estimates data centers could account for as much as 9 percent of annual US electricity generation by 2030, up from 4 percent of total electricity demand in 2023.

“If a data center is able to supply its electricity itself by using a fuel cell, it would directly convert hydrogen and other fuels into the electricity, reducing the burden on the energy grid,” Wu said.

Fuel cells generate electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen, producing water and heat as well. Catalysts speed up that reaction, cut energy losses and help performance last longer.

Platinum is one of the most effective catalyst materials, but it is a precious metal. Researchers have tried to cut platinum use by turning it into nanoparticles, typically using less than one quarter of a milligram per square centimeter. But during fuel-cell operation, those particles can dissolve, shift and grow larger, which reduces performance over time.

Platinum intermetallic catalysts have shown promise because they can improve activity and stability compared with conventional platinum alloys. But researchers have faced a tradeoff. Lower annealing temperatures help keep nanoparticles small and evenly distributed, but often do not fully create the highly ordered atomic structure that supports stronger activity and durability.

Wu’s team said its new carbon structure was designed to get around that problem. The material uses porous, hollow carbon spheres with orderly radial nanochannels, along with substantial pore space and surface area. That setup keeps platinum cobalt intermetallic nanoparticles densely packed and evenly distributed, while allowing the ordered intermetallic structure to form at much higher temperatures without the particles clumping together.

“Our strategy is using this new carbon nanostructure to synthesize platinum cobalt intermetallic nanoparticles that can reduce precious metal content and enhance activity and stability,” Wu said.

“Traditionally, there would be a tradeoff between size and stability, but with the ordered carbon nanochannel host, platinum cobalt nanoparticles can be confined and remain stable at very small particle size even at high temperatures.”

In testing, the material retained 85 percent of its performance after 150,000 severe voltage cycles. The researchers estimate that could correspond to about 25,000 hours of operation.

“Because of this special carbon nanostructured support, we could heat the platinum-cobalt catalyst to 1000°C, which is high enough to form a very ordered structure while still keeping the nanoparticles smaller than 5 nanometers and well spread out, even with industry-preferred high content of platinum in catalysts,” Wu said.

The team said the support structure also helped materials involved in ion transport spread more evenly through the electrode, while giving protons, oxygen and water easier paths to move.

“The open channel structure also helps the ion-containing material, such as an ionomer, spread evenly and makes it easier for protons, oxygen and water to move through the electrode,” Wu continued.

“As a result, the platinum cobalt nanoparticles built into this support showed best-in-class performance and long-lasting durability. Eventually, through further development and collaboration with industry partners, we’ll be able to solve the remaining catalyst problems and significantly advance fuel cell technologies for powering our future more efficiently and sustainably.”

Wu has filed a patent on the technology through the WashU Office of Technology Management. The research was funded by Washington University in St. Louis, with collaborators from Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Northeastern University and the University of Pittsburgh.

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