Breakthrough in designing catalysts for fuel cells
Baku, February 29 (AZERTAC). University of California, Berkeley, chemists are reimagining catalysts in ways that could have a profound impact on the chemical industry as well as on the growing market for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Catalysts are materials typically metals that speed up chemical reactions and are widely used in the synthesis of chemicals and drugs. The problem with catalysts, however, is that chemical reactions occur only at edges of or defects in the material, while the bulk of the metal — often expensive platinum — is inactive and wasted.
"This is a conceptual advance in the way we think about generating hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel, from water, a sustainable source," said Christopher Chang, associate professor of chemistry and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at UC Berkeley. "Our new catalyst is just first generation, but the research gives us and the community a path forward to thinking about how to increase the density of functional active sites so that molecules and materials can be more effective catalysts." Chang and his UC Berkeley colleagues worked with a common catalyst, molybdenite, that is less expensive than platinum and of increasing interest as a fuel cell catalyst. Composed of molybdenum and sulfur (MoS2), the material catalyzes reactions like the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen only at the edges, where triangles of molybdenum and two sulfur atoms stick out like pennants.
In future research, Chang hopes to assemble billions of these molecules on a thin, ridged wafer, maximizing the number of catalytic sites for a given volume and boosting ultimate efficiency.
The research was funded through the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis, a Department of Energy Energy Innovation Hub and LBNL`s Helios Solar Energy Research Center.
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