Efficient Energy Production with Hydrogen Fuel Cells: Finding the Right Catalysts

Postdoc Alba Garzón Manjón explains her latest results in a video interview

16. September 2021

One very promising way of producing energy in an environmentally friendly manner is via hydrogen fuel cells. In this video, Alba Garzón Manjón explains that a fundamental barrier to the widespread adoption of this technology is the prohibitive cost of the noble metals that act as catalysts in the fuel cell. Garzón Manjón’s research seeks to identify alternatives, centering her search on high entropy alloy materials. Highlighting the importance of the size, composition and stability of any material used, the research shows that a body centered cubic structure which is high in chromium and cobalt and low in manganese, is most suitable. The new catalyst is also shown to use less energy to initiate the reaction than noble alloys.

Alba Garzón-Manjón, Tobias Löffler, Michael Meischein, Hajo E. Meyer, Joohyun Lim, Valerie Strotkötter, Wolfgang Schuhmann, Alfred Ludwig, and Christina Scheu, "Sputter Deposition of Highly Active Complex Solid Solution Electrocatalysts into an Ionic Liquid Library: Effect of Structure and Composition on Oxygen Reduction Activity," Nanoscale 12 (46), 23570-23577 (2020).
Zur Redakteursansicht