KAIST is developing an alternative catalyst for hydrogen cells that is 1/80 cheaper than platinum

Hydrogen is attracting attention as a future energy source to reach carbon neutrality. A hydrogen fuel cell is a power generation device that produces electricity by reacting hydrogen with oxygen in the air, and is being developed as a power source for vehicles such as cars, buses and ships as well as small and medium power generation. However, platinum, a precious metal, is currently used as an electrode material, which is an obstacle to lowering the price.

KAIST announced on the 11th that Professor Eunae Cho’s research team at the Materials Science and Engineering Department’s Energy Conversion and Storage Laboratory has succeeded in developing a low-cost but high-performance electrode material that can replace platinum.

KAIST Professor Eunae Cho’s research team developed a ‘nickel-molybdenum material’ with better performance than platinum as an electrode material for anion exchange membrane fuel cells, which are being developed as next generation fuel cells.

When applying a newly developed catalyst to a real fuel cell, there were many cases where actual performance was not obtained due to various variables, but the research team was able to overcome this in this study and was able to apply the newly developed catalyst to a real fuel cell .

Nickel has been attracting attention as a non-noble metal electrode material for anion exchange membrane fuel cells, but has not been applied in practice because it is less than 1/100 the performance of platinum. However, the nickel-molybdenum catalyst developed by the research team has better performance than platinum (platinum: 1.0 mA / cm2, nickel-molybdenum catalyst: 1.1 mA / cm2), and the price is only 1/80th, making it an excellent alternative to platinum.

The research team also managed to ensure performance by applying a nickel-molybdenum catalyst to a fuel cell.

Professor Cho Eun-ae said, “Pure nickel has low performance, but by using molybdenum oxide to change the electronic structure of nickel, the performance has improved tremendously.” I hope it will be,” he said.

The results of this research, which Dr. Kwon Yong-geun of KAIST’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering took as the first author, was published in the online issue of Applied Catalysis B: Environmental on April 5, 2023, famous author. an international academic journal in the field of materials. .

Reporter Changhyun Lee of Hellotti |