jueves, 27 de febrero de 2014

Big step for next-generation fuel cells and electrolyzers

These schematic illustrations and corresponding transmission electron microscope images show the evolution of platinum/nickel from polyhedra to dodecahedron nanoframes with platinum-enriched skin.

Credit: Peidong Yang, Berkeley Lab


A big step in the development of next-generation fuel cells and water-alkali electrolyzers has been achieved with the discovery of a new class of bimetallic nanocatalysts that are an order of magnitude higher in activity than the target set by the U.S.

The new catalysts, hollow polyhedral nanoframes of platinum and nickel, feature a three-dimensional catalytic surface activity that makes them significantly more efficient and far less expensive than the best platinum catalysts used in today's fuel cells and alkaline electrolyzers.

This research was a collaborative effort between DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL).

"We report the synthesis of a highly active and durable class of electrocatalysts by exploiting the structural evolution of platinum/nickel bimetallic nanocrystals," says Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division, who led the discovery of these new catalysts.

"Our catalysts feature a unique hollow nanoframe structure with three-dimensional platinum-rich surfaces accessible for catalytic reactions.

By greatly reducing the amount of platinum needed for oxygen reduction and hydrogen evolution reactions, our new class of nanocatalysts should lead to the design of next-generation catalysts with greatly reduced cost but significantly enhanced activities."


Yang, who also holds appointments with the University of California (UC) Berkeley and the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at Berkeley, is one of the corresponding authors of a paper in Science that describes this research.

The paper is titled "Highly Crystalline Multimetallic Nanoframes with Three-Dimensional Electrocatalytic Surfaces."

The other corresponding author is Vojislav Stamenkovic, a chemist with ANL's Materials Science Division, who led the testing of this new class of electrocatalysts.

Credit: Peidong Yang, Berkeley Lab


Fuel cells and electrolyzers can help meet the ever-increasing demands for electrical power while substantially reducing the emission of carbon and other atmospheric pollutants.

Currently, the best electrocatalyst for both reactions consists of platinum nanoparticles dispersed on carbon.

http://phy.so/312736797

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