Alloys with this combination of properties, including a high transformation temperature, would be useful for actuator and control functions in automotive, aerospace, appliance, and chemical and energy processing applications, among others.

It has been demonstrated that a novel nanostructured quaternary anode catalyst with approximately 28% Pt yielded similar current levels as the state of the art Pt/Ru catalyst containing at least a factor of 2 more Pt. By greatly reducing the amount of Pt necessary, this preliminary result represents an advance towards the goal of lowering the overall cost/unit area for direct-methanol-fuel-cell anode catalyst fabrication.

Being corrosion resistant and stable these non-noble metal alloys are inexpensive substitutes in fuel cells for noble metals such as platinum and gold and can be used as a stable electronically conductive catalyst support, and as coatings on stainless steel bipolar plates. Also these materials present the possibility of designing new and inexpensive electrocatalysts.

Eutectic barium fluoride-calcium fluoride powder was produced by well-know atomization process, yielding rounded and spherical particles, which have substantially better flow properties than conventional ceramic powders with faceted and angular particles shapes.

The goal of proposed work is to confirm analytically and demonstrate experimentally the innovative use of shape memory polymer material systems for the construction of ultra-lightweight, self-deployable propellant/consumable storage tanks.