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| Mon, 6th Jul 2020 14:44:00 |
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New Catalyst Clears ‘Bottleneck’ in Production of Hydrogen - FuelCellsWorks |
It is now possible to produce ’hydrogen’, a future energy source, more efficiently. This is because a catalyst has been developed to accelerate the reaction of water ’electrolysis’, a hydrogen production process.
A research team led by Professor Kwang S. Kim (National Scientist) in the Department of Chemistry at UNIST (President Lee Yong-Hoon) has developed a “metal organic compound” catalyst that will improve water electrolysis efficiency through theoretical calculations. This catalyst, which can be used in basic electrolytes, promotes the’oxygen-generating reaction’, which is referred to as a’bottleneck’ in’water electrolysis technology’, thereby increasing the overall reaction efficiency.
‘Water electrolysis’ is a method of decomposing water (H2O) by electricity to produce hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2). Here, two reactions of hydrogen and oxygen production occur simultaneously, and the problem is that the entire reaction proceeds in response to the slow “oxygen-generating reaction”. Therefore, the slower the oxygen generating reaction, the slower the hydrogen production rate and the hydrogen production rate directly connected to it.
The research team proposed a new solution with a catalyst developed using a metal organic framework (MOF) containing nickel and iron. The metal organic skeleton is a material in which a metal and an organic material form a framework like a’reinforcing bar’ of a building. There are many fine-sized pores (channels), so the surface area is large, and the metal atom where the catalytic reaction occurs is exposed to the surface. Moreover, compared to iridium (Ir) used in commercial catalysts, nickel and iron have more reserves and are cheaper.
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