Acta Spa, an Italian fuel cell developer listed on London's AIM, which makes platinum-free HYPERMEC branded catalysts, is turning in some much improved results.

The company says that revenues in the first five months were ahead of expectations, and were more than double the level for the whole of 2006.

Acta also can report progress with its next generation of catalyst, the Hypermec 3 which in tests showed it had 70 percent more power than Acta's previous version. See this interview with Acta's Chief Operations Officer from March this year in the Wall Street Journal. Said Woolrych, the COO

"We've positioned ourselves at the forefront of a trend . . . we're in the right place at the right time. All the car manufacturers are keen to move towards non-carbon energy in the next 10-20 years".

That's quite a bold statement. I think some manufacturers like Porsche or Ferrari will never use non-carbon energy. Still, given that Acta is still a small company, the upside for them if just one medium-sized manufacturer uses their catalyst has to be substantial.

As I remarked in an earlier post, the fortunes of Acta are closely tied to the price of platinum. And right now, the mid spot price is $1289. Apart from making the case for platinum free catalysts, the ramp in platinum prices has had other effects too. Platinum is now vying with gold for wedding or engagement rings !