Scientists unlock key to cheap hydrogen fuel with 95% less iridium - Interesting Engineering
Scientists unlock key to cheap hydrogen fuel with 95% less iridium
This new discovery dramatically reduces the need for a rare, expensive metal currently used in hydrogen fuel production.
Manganese might be the solution to cheap hyrdogen fuel production for cars.
Joseph Brent./Wikimedia Commons
Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan may have found the secret sauce to cheap hydrogen fuel production. The secret, it seems, could be to mix a little manganese with the much rarer iridium commonly required today.
At present, hydrogen production requires a catalyst to break the bonds of water and free the hydrogen. The best of these catalysts discovered so far has been iridium.
However, this rare transition metal is very hard to come by, making it expensive to use in bulk. “Iridium is so rare that scaling up global hydrogen production to the terawatt scale is estimated to require 40 years’ worth of iridium,” says co-first author Shuang Kong.
However, the RIKEN researchers have found that manganese can help do some of the heavy lifting, enabling a reduction of up to 95% of the iridium content needed. Importantly, reducing this much iridium as the main catalyst doesn’t appreciably affect hydrogen production.
If scaled up, this discovery could help make hydrogen fuel a realistic alternative to carbon-based fuels.
Is manganese the secret to a “green hydrogen” future?
This is especially true given that 70% of the Earth is covered in the raw resource needed to make fuel: water. However, it is not yet possible to extract hydrogen from water on a scale rivaling fossil fuel-based energy production.
The current global energy production is approximately 18 terawatts. Alternative and environmentally friendly methods of energy production to replace fossil fuels must be capable of generating power at the same rates.
The team is working towards developing sustainable catalysts using common earth metals. Their recent success involved stabilizing green hydrogen production at a high level using manganese oxide as a catalyst. However, this method may take several years to achieve industrial-level production.
“We need a way to bridge the gap between rare metal- and common metal-based electrolyzers, so that we can make a gradual transition over many years to completely sustainable green hydrogen,” says Nakamura.
Researchers have discovered a way to sustain hydrogen production in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer using less iridium. They achieved this by spreading individual iridium atoms on a piece of manganese oxide, preventing them from clumping together.
More investigation needed
With the new catalyst, hydrogen production was possible continuously for over 3000 hours (about four months) at 82% efficiency without any degradation. “The unexpected interaction between manganese oxide and iridium was key to our success,” says co-author Ailong Li.
“This is because the iridium resulting from this interaction was in the rare and highly active +6 oxidation state,” he added. Nakamura believes that the level of hydrogen production achieved with the new catalyst has a high potential for immediate usefulness.
“We expect our catalyst to be easily transferred to real-world applications,” he says, “which will immediately increase the capacity of current PEM electrolyzers.”
Going forward, the team has already begun working with industry partners who have improved the original iridium-manganese catalyst. They also intend to continue studying the chemical interaction between iridium and manganese oxide to reduce the required amount of iridium further.
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Christopher McFadden Christopher graduated from Cardiff University in 2004 with a Masters Degree in Geology. Since then, he has worked exclusively within the Built Environment, Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental Consultancy industries. He is a qualified and accredited Energy Consultant, Green Deal Assessor and Practitioner member of IEMA. Chris’s main interests range from Science and Engineering, Military and Ancient History to Politics and Philosophy.
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