Shanghai, April 26 (Editor Huang Junzhi) Researchers at Imperial College London have reportedly developed a new hydrogen fuel cell that uses iron instead of rare and expensive platinum to make the technology more widely used.
Hydrogen fuel cells convert hydrogen into electricity, and the by-product is only water vapor, which makes them an attractive green portable alternative to electricity, especially cars. However, the high cost of one of the main components has hindered its widespread adoption. This fuel cell relies on a catalyst made of platinum that is both expensive and rare and can help generate energy reactions.
Now, a European team led by researchers at Imperial College London has created a catalyst using only iron, carbon and nitrogen (these inexpensive and readily available materials) and showed that it can be used to run fuel cells at high power. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature Catalysis.
Professor Anthony Kucernak, principal investigator in The Department of Chemistry at Imperial College, said: "Currently, platinum used in catalysts accounts for about 60% of the cost of a single fuel cell. For fuel cells to be a truly viable alternative to fossil fuel-driven vehicles, we need to reduce costs. ”
"Our cheaper catalyst design should make this a reality and allow for the deployment of more renewable energy systems that use hydrogen as fuel, ultimately reducing greenhouse gas emissions and putting the world on a path to net zero emissions." He added.
The team's innovation is to produce a catalyst in which all the iron is dispersed in the form of a single atom in a conductive carbon matrix. The chemical properties of single-atom iron are different from large pieces of iron, in which all the atoms are clustered together, and single-atom iron is more likely to react.
These properties mean that iron can facilitate the reactions required by fuel cells, making it a good alternative to platinum. In lab tests, the team showed that the performance of the single-atom iron catalyst was close to that of a platinum-based catalyst in a real fuel cell system.
In addition to producing a cheaper catalyst for fuel cells, the methods developed and created by the team can also be applied to catalysts for other processes, such as chemical reactions using oxygen from the atmosphere as reactants instead of expensive chemical oxidants, and in wastewater treatment that uses air to remove harmful pollutants.
Lead author Dr Asad Mehmood of Imperial College's Department of Chemistry said, "We have developed a new method to make a series of 'single atom' catalysts, which provides opportunities for a new range of chemical and electrochemical processes. Specifically, we used a unique synthesis method called metal conversion to avoid the formation of iron clusters during the synthesis process. This process should be beneficial to other scientists who want to make similar catalysts. ”
The team has partnered with Uk-based fuel cell catalyst manufacturer Johnson Matthey to test the catalyst in the appropriate system and hopes to scale up their new catalyst so that it can be used in commercial fuel cells. At the same time, they are working to improve the stability of the catalyst, making it comparable to platinum in durability and performance.