Professor Kim Jin-young's research team from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University announced on the 10th that they developed an electrochemical catalyst that will enable next-generation eco-friendly hydrogen production in collaboration with Korea University and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST).
Hydrogen is considered an eco-friendly energy source that can replace existing fossil fuels because it does not emit carbon dioxide during combustion. The electrolysis technology is required to produce hydrogen by using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The "anion exchange membrane electrolysis" that produces high-purity hydrogen through electrolysis is gaining attention as next-generation technology. To commercialize this technology, a catalyst electrode with high efficiency and stability is needed. Platinum, a representative catalyst, is expensive and quickly deteriorates, hindering commercialization.
The research team developed a "core-shell NANO cluster catalyst" based on ruthenium, which is priced at half the level of platinum. They reduced the size of the catalyst to below 2 nanometers (nm; 1 nm is one billionth of a meter) and significantly lowered the amount of precious metals used to one-third of that in platinum catalyst electrodes. However, its performance was 4.4 times higher than that of platinum catalysts.
The research team created a thin titanium oxide layer on a titanium foam substrate through hydrogen peroxide treatment and doped it with transition metal molybdenum. They uniformly deposited ruthenium oxide nanoparticles of 1 to 2 nm size on top. Subsequently, they induced heat diffusion through low-temperature heat treatment to form a core-shell structure. The resulting catalyst has a porous reduced titanium dioxide monolayer over a ruthenium metal core, featuring a unique core-shell structure with metallic molybdenum atoms at the interface.
Professor Kim Jin-young noted, "The core-shell catalyst that is extremely small with a size of less than 2 nm and has excellent performance and stability will significantly contribute to the development of nano core-shell device manufacturing technology and hydrogen production technology that will accelerate the carbon-neutral era."
References
Energy & Environmental Science(2025), DOI : https://doi.org/10.1039/d4ee04867a