Electrocatalyst
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KAIST Develops a Fire-risk Free Self-Powered Hydrogen Production System
KAIST researchers have developed a new hydrogen production system that overcomes the current limitations of green hydrogen production. By using a water-splitting system with an aqueous electrolyte, this system is expected to block fire risks and enable stable hydrogen production.
KAIST (represented by President Kwang Hyung Lee) announced on the 22nd of October that a research team led by Professor Jeung Ku Kang from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering developed a self-powered hydrogen production system based on a high-performance zinc-air battery*.
*Zinc-air battery: A primary battery that absorbs oxygen from the air and uses it as an oxidant. Its advantage is long life, but its low electromotive force is a disadvantage.
Hydrogen (H₂) is a key raw material for synthesizing high-value-added substances, and it is gaining attention as a clean fuel with an energy density (142 MJ/kg) more than three times higher than traditional fossil fuels (gasoline, diesel, etc.). However, most current hydrogen production methods impose environmental burden as they emit carbon dioxide (CO₂).
While green hydrogen can be produced by splitting water using renewable energy sources such as solar cells and wind power, these sources are subject to irregular power generation due to weather and temperature fluctuations, leading to low water-splitting efficiency.
To overcome this, air batteries that can emit sufficient voltage (greater than 1.23V) for water splitting have been gaining attention. However, achieving sufficient capacity requires expensive precious metal catalysts and the performance of the catalyst materials becomes significantly degraded during prolonged charge and discharge cycles. Thus, it is essential to develop catalysts that are effective for the water-splitting reactions (oxygen and hydrogen evolution) and materials that can stabilize the repeated charge and discharge reactions (oxygen reduction and evolution) in zinc-air battery electrodes.
In response, Professor Kang's research team proposed a method to synthesize a non-precious metal catalyst material (G-SHELL) that is effective for three different catalytic reactions (oxygen evolution, hydrogen evolution, and oxygen reduction) by growing nano-sized, metal-organic frameworks on graphene oxide.
The team incorporated the developed catalyst material into the air cathode of a zinc-air battery, confirming that it achieved approximately five times higher energy density (797Wh/kg), high power characteristics (275.8mW/cm²), and long-term stability even under repeated charge and discharge conditions compared to conventional batteries.
Additionally, the zinc-air battery, which operates using an aqueous electrolyte, is safe from fire risks. It is expected that this system can be applied as a next-generation energy storage device when linked with water electrolysis systems, offering an environmentally friendly method for hydrogen production.
< Figure 1. Illustrations of a trifunctional graphene-sandwiched heterojunction-embedded layered lattice (G-SHELL) structure. Schematic representation of a) synthesis procedures of G-SHELL from a zeolitic imidazole framework, b) hollow core-layered shell structure with trifunctional sites for oxygen reduction evolution (ORR), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), and c) heterojunctions, eterojunction-induced internal electric fields, and the corresponding band structure. >
Professor Kang explained, "By developing a catalyst material with high activity and durability for three different electrochemical catalytic reactions at low temperatures using simple methods, the self-powered hydrogen production system we implemented based on zinc-air batteries presents a new breakthrough to overcome the current limitations of green hydrogen production."
<Figure 2. Electrochemical performance of a ZAB-driven water-splitting cell with G-SHELL. Diagram of a self-driven water-splitting cell integrated by combining a ZAB with an alkaline water electrolyzer.>
PhD candidate Dong Won Kim and Jihoon Kim, a master's student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at KAIST, were co-first authors of this research, which was published in the international journal Advanced Science on September 17th in the multidisciplinary field of materials science. (Paper Title: “Trifunctional Graphene-Sandwiched Heterojunction-Embedded Layered Lattice Electrocatalyst for High Performance in Zn-Air Battery-Driven Water Splitting”)
This research was supported by the Nano and Material Technology Development Program of the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea’s Future Technology Research Laboratory.
2024.10.22 View 1140 -
3D Hierarchically Porous Nanostructured Catalyst Helps Efficiently Reduce CO2
- This new catalyst will bring CO2 one step closer to serving as a sustainable energy source. -
KAIST researchers developed a three-dimensional (3D) hierarchically porous nanostructured catalyst with carbon dioxide (CO2) to carbon monoxide (CO) conversion rate up to 3.96 times higher than that of conventional nanoporous gold catalysts. This new catalyst helps overcome the existing limitations of the mass transport that has been a major cause of decreases in the CO2 conversion rate, holding a strong promise for the large-scale and cost-effective electrochemical conversion of CO2 into useful chemicals.
As CO2 emissions increase and fossil fuels deplete globally, reducing and converting CO2 to clean energy electrochemically has attracted a great deal of attention as a promising technology. Especially due to the fact that the CO2 reduction reaction occurs competitively with hydrogen evolution reactions (HER) at similar redox potentials, the development of an efficient electrocatalyst for selective and robust CO2 reduction reactions has remained a key technological issue.
Gold (Au) is one of the most commonly used catalysts in CO2 reduction reactions, but the high cost and scarcity of Au pose obstacles for mass commercial applications. The development of nanostructures has been extensively studied as a potential approach to improving the selectivity for target products and maximizing the number of active stable sites, thus enhancing the energy efficiency.
However, the nanopores of the previously reported complex nanostructures were easily blocked by gaseous CO bubbles during aqueous reactions. The CO bubbles hindered mass transport of the reactants through the electrolyte, resulting in low CO2 conversion rates.
In the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS) on March 4, a research group at KAIST led by Professor Seokwoo Jeon and Professor Jihun Oh from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering designed a 3D hierarchically porous Au nanostructure with two different sizes of macropores and nanopores. The team used proximity-field nanopatterning (PnP) and electroplating techniques that are effective for fabricating the 3D well-ordered nanostructures.
The proposed nanostructure, comprised of interconnected macroporous channels 200 to 300 nanometers (nm) wide and 10 nm nanopores, induces efficient mass transport through the interconnected macroporous channels as well as high selectivity by producing highly active stable sites from numerous nanopores.
As a result, its electrodes show a high CO selectivity of 85.8% at a low overpotential of 0.264 V and efficient mass activity that is up to 3.96 times higher than that of de-alloyed nanoporous Au electrodes.
“These results are expected to solve the problem of mass transfer in the field of similar electrochemical reactions and can be applied to a wide range of green energy applications for the efficient utilization of electrocatalysts,” said the researchers.
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea.
Image credit: Professor Seokwoo Jeon and Professor Jihun Oh, KAIST
Image usage restrictions: News organizations may use or redistribute this image, with proper attribution, as part of news coverage of this paper only.
Publication:
Hyun et al. (2020) Hierarchically porous Au nanostructures with interconnected channels for efficient mass transport in electrocatalytic CO2 reduction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS). Available online at https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1918837117
Profile:
Seokwoo Jeon, PhD
Professor
jeon39@kaist.ac.kr
http://fdml.kaist.ac.kr
Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)
https://www.kaist.ac.kr
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Profile:
Jihun Oh, PhD
Associate Professor
jihun.oh@kaist.ac.kr
http://les.kaist.ac.kr
Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)
Department of Energy, Environment, Water and Sustainability (EEWS)
KAIST
Profile:
Gayea Hyun
PhD Candidate
cldywkd93@kaist.ac.kr
http://fdml.kaist.ac.kr
Flexible Devices and Metamaterials Laboratory (FDML)
Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)
KAIST
Profile:
Jun Tae Song, PhD
Assistant Professor
song.juntae@cstf.kyushu-u.ac.jp
http://www.cstf.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~ishihara-lab/
Department of Applied Chemistry
https://www.kyushu-u.ac.jp
Kyushu UniversityFukuoka, Japan
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2020.03.13 View 14926