South Korea's research and development of low-cost corrosion-resistant catalysts can reduce the cost of hydrogen production by electrolysis of water.

Geshi Auto News? The key to promote the development of hydrogen economy represented by hydrogen fuel vehicles is to produce hydrogen that can generate electricity at low cost. There are many ways to produce hydrogen, such as capturing by-product, recombination of fossil fuels, electrolysis of water, etc. Among them, the method of producing hydrogen by electrolysis of water is an environmentally friendly method, but the use of catalyst is the most important factor to determine its efficiency and price competitiveness. Because the electrolytic water device needs to use platinum (Pt) catalyst to accelerate the hydrogen production reaction and improve the durability. However, although the performance of the catalyst is very good, its cost is very high and it is not as competitive as other hydrogen production methods in price.

(Source: Korea Institute of Science and Technology)

According to the dissolution of electrolyte in water, the water electrolysis device will be different. For example, even if a catalyst made of transition metal is used instead of an expensive platinum-based catalyst, a device using proton exchange membrane (PEM) can realize a high-speed hydrogen production reaction. Therefore, many studies have focused on the commercialization of this technology. However, although the focus of this kind of research is to achieve high reactivity, the research on improving the durability of this kind of transition metal which is easy to corrode in electrochemical environment has been ignored.

According to foreign media reports, a research group of Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has developed a catalyst, which is made of transition metals with long-term durability, which can improve the efficiency of hydrogen production and overcome the durability problem of non-platinum catalysts without platinum.

The research team injected a small amount of titanium (Ti) into low-cost transition metal molybdenum phosphide (MoP) by spray pyrolysis process. Molybdenum is often used as a catalyst for energy conversion and energy storage equipment because of its low price and easy treatment, but its weakness is that it is easy to be oxidized and then corroded.

The researchers found that during the synthesis of the catalyst, the electronic structure of each material was completely reconstructed, and finally the same oxygen evolution reaction (HER) activity as platinum catalyst was realized. The change of electronic structure solves the problem of high corrosivity, so the durability of the catalyst is 26 times higher than that of the existing transition metal-based catalysts, which can accelerate the commercialization of non-platinum catalysts.

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