Using Nanotechnology to Address the Limitations of Hydrogen Production
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A clean hydrogen economy could be the answer to transitioning out of fossil fuel use. Being the most abundant element on the Earth and making up more than 90% of all known matter, it can be seen as the most feasible renewable resource available.
With its non-toxic characteristics, it has become an alternative fuel globally; NASA has used hydrogen to power space programs since 1958 and car manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda have also taken an interest in this resource to fuel vehicles.
However, the transition into the use of hydrogen has also brought a few challenges to light, with the use of electrolysis to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen having limitations for mass use.
SLAC
With a new suite of tools, scientists discovered exactly how tiny plate-like catalyst particles carry out a key step in that conversion – the evolution of oxygen in an electrocatalytic cell – in unprecedented detail.
Transitioning from fossil fuels to a clean hydrogen economy will require cheaper and more efficient ways to use renewable sources of electricity to break water into hydrogen and oxygen.
But a key step in that process, known as the oxygen evolution reaction or OER, has proven to be a bottleneck. Today it’s only about 75% efficient, and the precious metal catalysts used to accelerate the reaction, like platinum and iridium, are rare and expensive.