New catalyst makes hydrogen transport more affordable

One promising approach to storing and transporting hydrogen is in liquid carriers. But releasing that hydrogen for use requires a catalyst to speed up the process. Platinum works well as this catalyst, but it’s an expensive precious metal. The high cost of platinum has limited the economic viability of hydrogen storage and transport technologies.

A new catalyst developed by researchers at Seoul National University and Stanford University uses just one-tenth the platinum of conventional commercial catalysts while producing hydrogen more efficiently and lasting longer. The team found that platinum clusters of similar size can contain different numbers of atoms, and that atom count is a key factor in determining catalyst performance. By precisely controlling the number of atoms within each platinum cluster, the researchers achieved superior performance with far less material.

"This research goes beyond simple catalyst size optimization to maximize hydrogen production performance through precision structural control at the atomic scale," said Jungwon Park, professor of chemical and biological engineering at Seoul National University. The SUNCAT team, Shyama Charan Mandal and Frank Abild Pedersen, used computational modeling to help explain how the catalyst works at the atomic level. 

The findings could help lower costs for hydrogen technologies and offer new insights for catalyst design across a range of clean energy applications.

Read the article: https://lnkd.in/gJS6xtdd

Read the study in Science: ​​https://lnkd.in/gRrb2Vy9