New electrocatalysts that efficiently release hydrogen have been developed at the N.S. Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences. These catalysts are more accessible and do not contain sulfur derivatives, according to the press service of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
Currently, noble metals such as platinum, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, and iridium are used to produce hydrogen. However, the high cost of these metals limits their widespread use.
Instead of noble metals, researchers have proposed using cellular complexes (clathrochelates) with encapsulated iron and cobalt ions. The resulting monoatomic metal-complex electrocatalysts can effectively replace platinum group metals for producing high-purity hydrogen.
It was found that the cellular complexes synthesized by us are monoatomic electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction in homogeneous solutions. They are well adsorbed on activated carbon and reduced graphene oxide — practically important carbon cathode materials with a high surface area and a large volume of micropores.
In the future, the developers plan to take new hybrid organic-inorganic catalytic materials and test them in semi-industrial water electrolyzers. This will open up new opportunities for their use in the energy and chemical industries.
Earlier, www1.ru reported that in Russia they figured out how to make effective filters for hydrogen purification.
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